#I am really bad at starting stories and getting the momentum going lol

[writereleaserepeat]

Gnashing of Teeth - Chapter 2

Previous // Next (tbd)

CW: pet-adjacent whump, instituzionalized slavery, nonconsensual fighting, fight scene, violence, blood, strangulation, non-con drug use

A/N: Detailed fight scenes are not my forte in writing (and I know they can be a bit boring to read), but they will not be frequently featured in this story. I felt that this one was necessary for setting the scene of the story, describing Sasha's mindset, and situating the reader to just what's at stake.

Sasha’s drug tests had come back clean. Of course they came back clean. They were smart when they dosed him, carefully timed around the fights he would be put in for, just enough days apart for his blood to come back pure. 

Given the intensity of the prior day’s workout routine, Sasha knew that he must have been a last-minute replacement for this bout. Maybe one of the other fighters hadn’t passed their blood test. Maybe they’d had a rash of resistance and been forcibly subdued. 

Maybe, as was common among Sasha’s kind, they had finally killed themselves. 

“You ready?” Boss’s voice spoke right into Sasha’s ear, the breath hot and rancid against his skin. If Sasha had been permitted any food in the last six hours, he knew he would have thrown it up. But he mustered the strength to answer rather than gag.

“Yes, Boss.” The answer was pure reflex, nothing more. Just enough words to get Boss to back the fuck away. 

Sasha tried to focus on the pounding in his chest, the angry heart that fluttered against his ribs, a side effect of the caffeine and other stimulants he had been force-fed hours prior. His eyes were fixed on the doors straight ahead. As soon as they opened he would be forced into the pit, and he would find himself face to face with another man - no, another thing - like himself. 

His life depended on his strength. 

Naked except for the collar around his neck and the tight black briefs that hugged his hips, Sasha struggled to control his breathing. Every part of his body was vibrating with the urge to fight, to let his bruised knuckles smash into flesh, his teeth wrap around any visible fingers or ears. He likewise anticipated the bloody thrill of his gums getting sliced open by his own teeth and nails scratching down his scarred forearms. Adrenaline flared and he rolled his shoulders back. 

“Atta boy,” Boss said and smacked Sasha on his sweat-soaked shoulder. “You get ‘em down and keep ‘em down, and we’ll give you a rest day tomorrow.” 

“Yes, Boss.”

That final promise of reprieve was always the sign it was just a few seconds away from go-time. Mere moments until the guillotine door would pull open and reveal the dirt pit with impossibly high walls, the crimson-splattered ground illuminated by blinding white lights. Spectators and bettors would cheer with unabashed bloodlust, always just out of sight behind the rails atop the walls. It was a cacophony of utter violence. 

And just as Sasha let out a sharp puff of breath through his nose, the door lifted open. 

Sasha rushed forward with a roar building in his throat, just as his handlers had taught him. Don’t think, don’t wait, don’t hesitate. He ran until he collided with another body moving at almost the same speed, their flesh hitting with a sickening smack. That first moment was the only chance Sasha would get to size up his opponent before they attempted their first strike. 

The other fighter was shorter, Sasha could tell just from the way their head had collided with his collarbone. But they also were broader, which he had determined the way that his own feet had slid back upon impact. As for strength he could only guess that they were about evenly matched. For a moment, Sasha swore he saw a glint of fury from blue eyes, but it could have just as easily been his imagination. 

Sasha drew back his left fist and sunk it deep into the other fighter’s abdomen. 

Boss liked Sasha to keep the fight on his feet for as long as possible, Boss said it made fighters look dignified as they pummeled their opponent. “Patrons don’t pay top dollar to see two brutes wrestling with each other in the dirt.” Grapple holds and headlocks were the most effective way to win, but it was always more thrilling to see the loser sway on their feet before toppling unconscious to the ground. At least, that’s what Sasha had been told in his training. 

After assessing his opponent, and after landing the first blow, all rational thought left Sasha’s mind. He gave in to the bloodlust and anger that so often overpowered him. Nothing less than nuclear fury would get him through the end of this match, whether the match was seconds or minutes long, and he would be one day closer to earning his humanity back. He was going to be a winner, then he would go back to the showers and get the blood washed from his knuckles, and sleep for twelve hours. 

It would be pure bliss. 

The only thing Sasha could hear as he sunk fist after fist into his opponent’s sides was the rush of his own breathing. Deep, guttural, animal breaths. He was an animal now, after all. The transformation had taken place as soon as he stepped in the ring. 

Warm liquid splattered across his face and he knew it was blood, but not his own. There was a spark of glee at the thought that he could win. The other fighter wasn’t making as much contact, and hadn’t yet landed a blow on Sasha’s face. Those training sessions had made Sasha’s instincts sharp enough to dodge uppercuts without a second thought. 

Then they both went down in a tumble of limbs as the other fighter lost his balance. Sasha reflexively bucked his hips, as he intended to roll the other fighter so he could end up on top. 

The other man tried to do the same, but he was too late. Sasha had already leaned forward and wrapped his teeth around their collarbone. This earned Sasha a ear-piercing shriek of pain before other teeth returned the favor, foreign enamel sinking into the skin above Sasha’s pectoral muscle. That was alright - so long as they were focused on biting, Sasha had the chance to move in for his finishing move. 

Other fighters didn’t like this method, Boss had said. They thought it was too inhumane. Sasha didn’t mind. As soon as the fighter bit down, Sasha pulled them in close to his body and released his own bite hold. Now they were trapped close to his body, and being stuck on the ground, they didn’t have even an inch of leverage. Then, and only then, did Sasha wrap his forearms tight around their throat. 

This fighter released their bite hold immediately and fell back to using their nails, but they were flat against the dirt, pressed beneath Sasha’s full weight as his forearms pushed against their jugular. Now their adrenaline-filled body was being deprived of the oxygen it so desperately needed to keep going. The desperate squirming told Sasha that he was close, so he pressed harder, his own forehead almost against the ground. Blood and sweat made their exposed bodies slick against each other, and Sasha knew that this was as close as he would get to an embrace until his next match. 

Blood thundered in his ears. Reality was starting to drift away as the wriggling form beneath him began to still, go limp, become little more than a prey animal. It wasn’t human to begin with, was it? A growl mounted in Sasha’s throat and he put his whole weight into the maneuver, every pound of muscle meant to crush, crush, crush-

Instinct was cut short by electricity freezing him in place. Sasha’s lungs seized and he fell off the other fighter, now in the dirt next to them, and he writhed beneath the current and its familiar agony. When the sensation ended he was on his back, staring up at the spotlights, his chest rising and falling with every gasp. The buzzing in his ears faded, and he heard the roar of whistling and hollering from the stands above, the sound of satisfied spectators who had won their bets. Through the fuzz of animal instinct, Sasha felt a small hint of pride. 

He’d won again. 

The victory was short lived as the catch pole tightened around his neck and hauled him to his feet. He struggled to go in the direction the handlers were pulling him, relying only on the tugging at his neck to guide him back to the darkness behind the door. Sasha still let out soft growls as he panted in spite of himself. Something in the pit was transformative, lighting his blood on fire with the urge to destroy. 

That very instinct was why victors were subjected to the catch pole, a stick that secured them a solid ten feet from the handlers. This was the only safe way to pull amped-up fighters away from their opponent and back to their cages. It would take Sasha the better part of two hours to come down from the animalistic high of fighting, and in that time he was a liability even to the handlers that had conditioned his obedience. 

When Sasha came to from the fugue of predatory bloodlust, he would be rinsed down and clothed. Severe wounds would be treated - often Sasha couldn’t feel them until the pain set in hours later - and the others would be left to heal on their own. If he had won, they would also feed him dinner, and fulfill whatever other small comforts had been promised. 

Darkness surrounded Sasha as he was pulled back into the tunnel and the doors to the pit shut behind him. He strained against the catch pole for just a moment when he thought he saw a silhouette, but another rough yank kept him moving forward. 

“Guess you earned yourself the chance to sleep in,” a distant voice said. 

Sasha only growled in response.

Taglist: @honeycollectswhump

[curio-queries]

ARE YOU SURE?!

Episode 4 production Notes

Again, I genuinely didn't think I'd have anything to say at this point about this episode. I had such a good time the first time I watched it, just smiling the whole way through. There is one thing that did stick in my brain a little bit though so here I am again with another post.

Episode Break Points

We honestly can't be making any final conclusions at this point but there is starting to emerge a picture of how the production team approached the development of this show as an episodic release. The question that was rattling around my brain after watching episode 4 was how they are choosing their cut points between episodes. We really only have three data points right now which is not enough to definitively identify their intent but it does start to paint the picture a little bit. Sometimes, the break point is beyond obvious, like cutting ep.2 at the end of the USA trip. But when there's not a definitive line, a choice has to be made when to bring one episode to a close and start another.

Some shows use the changing of the day as a break point but that's not necessarily always the best choice to make for the narrative of the show. For example, the break between eps 1 and 2 is in the morning after JK has his coffee and makes the stone tower. This better served the momentum of the episode and wrapped up the story beat of JM's rough night. Ep 2 then starts on a high note with JK's motorbike ride. In my opinion, this was an excellent choice as we close ep.1 feeling all cozy and ep.2 begins with a little bit of excitement.

A Look Back

So why am I bringing this up now? It's because I was so confused as the choice of when to break these two episodes. I don't know if I've decided if it was good/bad/somewhere-in-between but I absolutely was not expecting Episode 4 to start the way it did. Ep 3 ends at the Go Karts and feels like a complete story beat. While ep 4 starts with the drive to the Omakase.

To me, it feels like we're picking up on the last remains of the previous episode and not starting a new section. Which is honestly, kind of counterintuitive. Why would it feel like that? They're literally on their way to the next activity. I suspect it has more to do with the tonal momentum. The guys are still coming down from all of the energy they expended from Rock Climbing and racing and are having a well-deserved relaxing drive. Even the brief moments we see of JK on the motorbike are quite chill. (mostly because there's not really a great way to get action footage on a bike in the dark lol).

So...to see if I could support my suspicion, or if I was just bringing something else into my viewing experience, I decided to rewatch the whole series so far and rank every story beat on a scale for how energetic/intense I felt the narrative was supporting.

A couple of notes before you judge my rankings:

This data is the very definition of subjective. if I redid this same exercise even the next day, I'm sure I would disagree with myself on certain rankings so you certainly don't have to agree with my rankings.

If a storybeat had a noticeable tonal shift, I entered it twice and included both rankings. If it just varied a bit, I entered a ranking more representative of the scene as a whole.

This won't be reflective of the time occupied by each story beat. Some sections are longer than others but with sustained energy so it doesn't translate in this visual representation how much of an impact on the overall tone of the episode any one of these are.

I also added a star at the end of each episode of my median scores. I feel that this was a better representation of the overall tone of each episode rather than an average but that's just my personal view on this teeny dataset. Please don't come for me analytics folks! This is just a post for funzies, not proper analysis!

So What?

The point was curious about is in the gap between eps 3 & 4. Everywhere else there's a pretty clear shift in the start and end of the energy but that gap looks like it was just a step that was missed in what could have been a continual episode.

Here are the runtimes of each episode so far:

USA: 56 min

USA: 72 Min

Jeju: 56 min

Jeju: 70 min

I don't have any conclusions about why it was done this way other than they felt the tonal break was the sacrifice for keeping the Omakase story line in tact. Which honestly, I agree. There would have been time to include the drive in the previous episode but it would have left us on an unfinished storybeat. This is one of the reasons that we never get footage of the members return trip from their travel shows. Bon Voyage ends every episode with the members remarking on the trip overall. Even though we know they have to return home, we don't see it because that would start to build energy for whatever they're doing next and not the story of their trip.

Even in ITS1 when the members do return home in the middle, we see them packing up and getting in the cars but the episode ends before they really start traveling. (Actually it ends before they even let Jin in the car so they're definitely not on their way yet!)

Commercials?

I have a question for anyone that's watching this with ads. I don't really watch streaming content so I'm curious, do the ad breaks just randomly occur? Or does it seem like they're intentionally scheduled? Building story breaks for commercials was a huge focus of legacy tv and I'd be interested to learn more about how streaming services are incorporating it (not enough to not have commercials though, I get insta-rage when the content I'm consuming is interrupted lol). I vaguely remember getting frustrated when I was attempting to watch something at my parent's over the holidays but I don't recall if it seemed structured or not.

That's it. That's all I've got to say right now. We're definitely getting a lot more to the story of this show and I'm absolutely loving it. I'm going to be away for a bit next week and I honestly don't know when I'll fit in watching episode 5 but I'm very much looking forward to it!

If you've seen this post and are interested in some more of my thoughts on Are You Sure, here's a link to my AYS MasterList. Still can't believe I've rambled so much about this show but it's been fun! Thanks to everyone that's been rambling with me!

[aihoshiino]

chapter 151 thoughts

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 8

Aqua Hoshigan Status: Black

Kana enjoyers continue to eat good in this new arc, as 151 very clearly parallels what's considered one of the more iconic AquKana chapters from the first half of the manga with a bit of role reversal in the mix. 'Reversal' is sort of the keyword for this chapter for a handful of reasons but we'll get into that when it's relevant.

the usual shout out to mengo for Peak Faces this chapter. my faves were kana's blushy face as she takes off her glasses and aqua covering his blush with his baseball glove… it does NOT get cuter than that.

It's pretty cathartic to see Kana get a similar TV spotlight to BH!Ruby, where she's centered in B-Komachi's success and Ruby is sort of just in the background lol. That said… kinda of hate that OnK is continuing to frame the ShimaD shit!!! I have a lot of complicated feelings about it but I will say that overall, it's pretty fucked that the story made all those correct assertions about sexual harassment in the entertainment industry and how women and young girls specifically are pressured to kowtow to men to retain their place in the industry and then like… not? link any of this?? to what happened to Kana??? Weird and bad!!!!

on the plus side. megarima and maskua <3

It feels like a good step for Kana to confidently assert that they are, in fact, on a date and their shared visible embarrassment is pretty cute. This is what I meant when I said this chapter was a bit of a reversal of chapter 30, which Aqua even calls explicit attention to - running from school to play catch vs running to school. It works well, imo, as a sort of marker of both change and consistency for both of these characters, showing us how far they've come… but at the same time, how much has managed to stay the same. This return to the early AQKN dynamic is really nice… their moment to moment rapport is the one I enjoy most in the series so even though it's definitely jarring to whiplash back to it after the Movie Arc… idk!! I am still enjoying it all the same.

aqua calling her out on it being a baseball date was really funny btw

And their talk about dreams is… Very Shrimptresting. I keep waffling back and forth on what to take from it, because hypothetically I think it's really interesting but whether or not I really end up liking it is going to depend on how things are handled with Aqua going forward…! IDK, this is the obvious pitfall of analyzing the story like this week to week,

I guess all I'll say now is that this falls in line with how I was reading last chapter's framing of Gorou -> Aqua, where Aqua's inheritance of that identity is just that - an inheritance and it's up to him what he chooses to do with that legacy. He can decide for himself what parts of it he wants to take with him into the future and what he chooses to leave behind.

That said: this is still black hoshigan Aqua. Is this just a 'dream' because it's something he wants but doesn't think he'll be able to have? Or is Aqua starting to seriously consider a future for himself past the end of his revenge quest? It was Kana who prompted him for an answer, after all, and he's already had to make a promise to her that he won't 'disappear'. Is he just lying here to put her at ease? Much to consider…….

Kana's side of this conversation is also really interesting. Kana is a person who acts out of genuine love for her craft, yes, but she's also correct that she kind of already got her assumed end goal of 'be a nationally famous actress' when she was a kid and it didn't necessarily make her happy or fulfilled. To a degree, she's been operating on momentum and desperation to cling to the industry so much of her identity was formed around. But if a 'dream' is something she just wants for herself, without her career coming into it… then what does Kana really want?

And the answer, obviously, is Aqua. With another 'oshi no ko' title drop, to boot…!

It's a little sad that even as Kana makes this tentative confession to him, she still downplays herself in favour of Memcho and Ruby but the emotional stakes she's putting on the table are very loaded. This essentially, without either girl knowing it, puts her in direct competition with Ruby who very much seems to still want to milk her sensei's Little Aqua and I don't imagine that conflict is going to go off without fireworks.

Interestingly, though, this isn't the only point on which the two are opposed here: this is what I mean when I said this chapter's keyword was 'reversal'. While Ruby insists that 'Sensei' is her oshi, Kana offers to be Aqua's oshi. This isn't the first time it's happened, either - when Kana talks about her feelings last chapter, she describes them as 本気の恋 (honki no koi), i.e, seriously, earnestly, truly in love whereas Ruby's confession uses the term ガチ恋 (gachikoi), a slang term referring to a fan who considers themselves to be legitimately in romantic love with a celebrity/idol/etc - and specifically says she's gachikoi for Sensei. Gachikoi is also how the first generation of B-Komachi are described in both Viewpoint B and 45510 in the original Japanese text. On just about all fronts, these two are bound to clash going into the final arc of the story and I'm tentatively interested to see where it goes.

No break next week!

[iraprince]

do u have any advice for those that want to run a quest?

it feels a LEETLE silly answering this when all my own are currently on hiatus bc i got busy (SORRY TO CALLIST0 READERS LOL) BUT!!! yes i do. i have only ever run quests/interactive comics on the site questden, so i guess as a baseline this will kind of all be geared towards that, but i think most of this should translate to any hosting situation

you have to be cool with your plots branching and mutating in unexpected ways, and you have to be willing to play ball with your readers. quests are a collaboration between the author and the audience. it often feels a lot like gming a tabletop campaign (and that's the origin!! questden, specifically, was originally an offshoot of /tg/.) -- we've all had or heard about bad GMs who view their position as that of a narrative dictator who exists to punish and prod a captive group of players thru their own personal novel, but a good GM is interested in telling stories as a group. u have final say and have to stay true to the important stuff abt ur story, but if u get mad or frustrated when ur readers want to explore something "off topic" or aren't following the threads of ur narrative the way u expected them to, u don't actually want to run a quest, u just want to make a webcomic w mandatory comments. (the flip side of this is: consider if the story u want to make is the right one for an interactive quest. if it is REALLY important to u that the plot beats of a story go a certain way, maybe save it for a medium where u have more control!)

keep it loose and fast. the art does not matter. i am rly guilty of not following this one, but i still think it's really important! one of the things i like best about quests is the barrier to entry is very low and you SHOULD be able to start and maintain one very quickly. if i were better at keeping my art scrabbly and sketchy and loose, my stuff would not go on hiatus as often as it does. draw fast! it's NICE if the art is gorgeous to look at and definitely will draw readers, but it's way better if the art is simple enough that you can update frequently and without much stress. the quality of ur writing + character building, and whether u are telling a story that's engaging and that ur readers feel meaningfully involved in, is 100000x more important than the art.

on the more nitty gritty side: try to have a hook in each update. one of the most common reasons suggestions die off is readers being unsure of what they're supposed to do next. sure, too much spoonfeeding could end up feeling like railroading, and you don't have to end every single update by getting right in their faces and yelling "WHAT DO YOU DO NEXT??", but when you finish an update try to take a second to put yourself in a reader's shoes and see if there's an obvious next step. is there a course of action to decide on/debate, are there clear questions they can ask an npc, etc -- i can't think of a great way to describe it, but you want to avoid ending an update on a note where the player character and readers are basically sitting there looking at each other like "um... okay. that's that, then." some ppl even just end all their updates w multiple choice options, which is a super simple way to keep things moving if it fits the style of what ur doing. if you don't want it to be that overt but you still can't think of a way for there to be a clear hook, you can at least try to leave a little nudge in the narration that invites the readers to try to tie whatever they've just done/learned back into the pc's main goals/motivations or current tasks. (on this subject, VERY useful for your main character to have a very specific goal or end destination that everyone is on the same page abt. it's harder for your plot to lose momentum if you can always point at what your readers are supposed to be moving toward!)

finally: KEEP UPDATING EVEN IF YOU GET VERY FEW/NO SUGGESTIONS. it's a niche genre. questden is a small website. it's hard to get people to read something new, especially if it's in a new and unfamiliar format (and especially especially when it's on a website that looks like a chanboard lmao). picking up readers takes a long time, and a lot of people lurk without suggesting (ESPECIALLY if it's a difficult/plot-important decision, and also especially in the opposite, if it's a very obvious next step and someone else has already commented what most ppl would say). it's very tempting to want to wait for more suggestions bc u "only" have one or two, and then that wait becomes stagnation, and then you're frustrated and u end up dropping the quest bc "nobody cares." instead u just have to push thru!!!! u only have two suggestions and u wish u had more? maybe next update u'll get more. u have NO suggestions and u feel like that means ur quest is dead in the water? NOPE! the solution is to update again, bc maybe ppl with latch on more and have something to say in the next scene. the more u update ur quest, the more u'll be able to talk abt it (and maybe get more readers), and specifically in the case of questden the more ur thread will be bumped to the front page. think abt how many times you've seen ppl talking abt a webcomic or a book and thought "i need to check that out eventually...." but it takes months for you to actually do it. 99.9999% of the time, ppl need to see something MULTIPLE TIMES before they check it out!! most readers do not come from clicking something the very first time they see it!! i know it can feel lonely and discouraging, but u owe it to ur art and the stories u want to tell to keep trying, even if engagement is very low at first, otherwise you're killing it before it's even had a chance. like, get shameless about it. ask your buddies to comment on your quest. but give that horse a few really good whacks before you decide it's dead!! i think that's my main thoughts. if you have any more specific questions i'm happy to help if i can! but also i think you'll learn the most by just jumping in and fucking around. quests are easy to pick up and easy to drop, and imo do really well as a playground where u test different ways to draw and tell stories, so might as well just get messy.

[rc-writes]

I saw that you wrote for Erica from mbv and that’s so exciting!! Can u do a fem!reader x Erica (bi icon!) and they go on a cute date?

𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐫

𝙢𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙨 | 𝙩𝙖𝙜𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙢

pairings: erica jones x fem!reader

warnings: brief mention of the word murder, fast fair rides, reader getting dizzy, i believe that's it

a/n: alright this time it seems like erica decided to be the one to have me finishing a request at 1am lol. anyways, i’ve never written for erica before so i was a little worried how this would turn out but i have to say i really like this. like i actually think i’ve succeeded at writing something more cute than funny for once lol. i should write for more female characters more often lol. also wanted to add that the examples of rides in this are inspired by different rides my town’s fair has had in the past. though i will admit that the first one in this i didn’t actually go on. i am more than willing to admit that i don’t do many rides and that one was a bit too out of my comfort zone lol. also i'm realizing i'm terrible at naming fics lol. anyways, i hope you like this as much as i do!

“You know when you said ‘let’s go on a fun date,’ I expected a bit more screaming and blood.”

“Why must everything involve murder with you? And there is plenty of screaming from that ride over there.”

The other day you suggested picking a surprise date idea for you and Erica to go on. There was a fair in town this weekend and you knew she wouldn’t go if she knew beforehand. Something about unattended kids running around crazy, overpriced bad food, and lame kiddy rides. You knew there was potential that she’d like it if she gave it a chance, so this was why you proposed it to be a surprise. And a surprise it was.

Erica’s eyes narrowed in annoyance at you. She tried her best to turn you down but the hopeful look on your face made it hard to. “Fine.” She huffed in defeat.

You practically squealed in delight and held onto her arm harder. “Okay let’s do the circle upside down one!”

You practically squealed in delight and held onto her arm harder. “Okay let’s do the circle upside down one!”

This particular ride was where most of the screaming was coming from. It was at least three stories tall and shaped like a giant circle. Each person was strapped to their seat by a metal bar that went over their shoulders and across their chests. The reason for such being that the train-like chart you were in would sway you from one side of the circle to the other side back and forth a few times before quickly sending you completely around the circle. With each sway the ride would get faster and faster which is how it gained enough momentum to send you around the full circle. This process happened four times throughout one ride. Which is exactly why you though it was the perfect ride to bring Erica on. “Pathetic little humans they are.” Erica chuckled as she watched the group ahead of you scream while on the ride. “I can’t believe people even find this scary.”

You shook your head with a slight smile at your girlfriend’s antics. “I think what is considered ‘scary’ depends entirely on the person. For example I am the only one who doesn’t think you’re scary.”

Erica turned to you sharply, clearly offended. “I am very scary.” She let her fangs show a little, just enough for only you to see.

You only smiled back at her, “Quite cute actually.”

Once more her eyes narrowed in annoyance at you and once more she admitted defeat with a sigh. “Fine, I’ll take cute.” You happily laughed at this.

Soon enough it was you two’s turn on the ride and you were both seated next to each other. From the moment your turn was up until it was time for the ride to start up Erica continued to insist that this ride was for the weak and she would probably find it incredibly annoying. This continued when the ride started to slowly rock back and forth, but that mindset quickly changed once the ride picked up speed.

For someone who acted all scary and tough, Erica Jones seemed to be no match for a fair ride that sends you in giant circles multiple times. On the first circle Erica’s hand immediately reached for yours and remained tightly held onto until after the ride was over. Her eyes were also tightly shut as she yelled curse word after curse word.

You on the other hand were laughing the entire time. From laughing at how wrong Erica was and because you were genuinely enjoying the ride.

“I can’t believe you were laughing the whole time, you psychopath!” Erica exclaimed once you two walked off the ride. You could only laugh more at this as you dragged Erica yet another ride. The deal of only going on one ride was out the window at this point. You needed to know how the big bad scary vampire did on other rides.

And so you and Erica rode ride after ride, none of which came to the same level as the first. After the initial shock of the first ride wore off Erica felt better going on more “intense” rides but insisted to never go on the first again. You even tried to bribe her with ice cream from one of the food trucks to try it at least once but to no avail.

The second to last ride of the night was one that spun you around for a few minutes while you could also spin your seat around as fast as you wanted. One person sat across from another and there was a circle in between the two. The circle in the middle could be twisted to make your specific “booth” spin to whatever speed you wanted.

Over the course of the night Erica has gained a bit more confidence in rides and decided to spin you guy’s “booth” as fast as she could. She even used a bit of her vampire strength to have full control over the speed and make it go as fast as she wanted specifically. You gripped onto the handle as hard as you could while also laughing as hard as you could. Erica was already finding the ride to be incredibly fun, evident by the huge smile on her face, but seeing you laughing with your whole heart and soul made things even better.

Once the ride was over Erica quickly jumped out of her seat ready for the next ride. You on the other hand felt a bit dizzy and nearly face planted trying to get off the ride.

Erica noticed your dizziness and quickly moved to catch you before you fell. “Woah there darling, no more of those spinning rides for you.”

“Just one more please?” Even though you almost just fell and the ground seemed to be tilting you didn’t want to go home quite just yet. For the third time today you let your saddened eyes try and convince your girlfriend to change her mind.

“Nope, no more spinning rides for you.” Erica shut you down quickly. She had to admit the sad but cute eyes had an effect on her, but the thought of keeping you safe override those feelings. “But I might have to make an exception for the ferris wheel.” She wasn’t a total monster.

And so you and Erica made your way over to the lighted up ferris wheel and took a seat in a cart side by side. You sat with your head on her shoulder and with her head on yours, hands held tightly together. The both of you sat silently as the ferris wheel started as you both stared up at the stars. With all the screaming and laughing throughout the day you were both admittedly very tired and wanted to just have a moment of quiet peace. Even if that by quiet that meant still having to hear other people yelling from other rides.

Once your cart made its way to the very top of the ferris wheel it suddenly stopped. Confused murmurs could be heard from the other riders signaling that this wasn’t supposed to happen.

“Did it stop working?” You questioned turning to look at Erica. The smirk on Erica’s face gave away the answer to your question. “What did you do?”

“I may have scared the operrater to stop the ride up here for a few minutes.” Erica’s smirk turned into a genuine smile when you started to laugh.

“Of course you did.” You giggled, playfully nudging Erica’s shoulder.

Erica nudged your shoulder back. “It proves that I am scary.”

“I never said you weren't scary to other people, just not to me.” You stated proudly.

Erica tried to look annoyed back but she couldn't hold back the genuine joy she felt in this moment. “You’re lucky I like you.” She held onto your hand, laying her head on your shoulder.

This time you were the one to lean your head onto hers and with a soft smile you replied, “I sure am.”

[n7punk]

Congrats on 100 ao3 posts! I’m always curious when writers have so many posts which works caused them the most stress and then which ones were weirdly easy to complete.

You always have such compelling stories, I wonder which ones just wrote themselves vs which ones had you scrambling for ideas haha!

thank you! i've been so focused on my recent goal i didnt even realize what an achievement that was lol. im getting closer to my goal of becoming 1% of all catradora fics XD just 12 more. the problem with that goal is the number of catradora fics is always increasing and its a lot to keep up with + overtake lol. i want to be insane and do it, though. I'd really be interested to know how I stack up as far as most prolific catradora authors go because i think i'd be pretty high up there, especially in word count (versus fic count, since i tend to do long fics). i'd bet im top ten in terms of word count actually, maybe all the way to top lol (currently at over 2.1 million words). i dont think there's any way to actually determine that though lmao it's just something i wonder about

and to be quite honest: at 100, i have no idea what the answer is to that usually i know most, if not all, of the planned fic by the time i start/am done with the first chapter, and then additional ideas pop up throughout (which is helpful, because they help me maintain momentum). in recent memory, i think selling a dream was actually the fic i had the biggest problems with getting done just because my executive dysfunction was so bad at that time, which also made it take ages, which then made it harder in a cycle. from an 'ideas' stand point... well, i only have one unfinished fanfiction (aside from the one i just started, i mean), so you can guess lol. the ones for this year have mostly came to me really fast. superzero is the only one i had a little stalling on, but that was mostly because it was so fucking long.

[finnstansonly]

YES GET YOUR BOOK BACK!!!!! THE GENDER OF IT ALL Breq thinks like a legit Ship. Also they're canonically not white. wish I could write this better lol, but I am genuinely enjoying my listen of it. the politics in the flashback are very interesting, the culture behind how the ships function, the vitriol that Breq has towards multiple people while also saying "I feel nothing". etc etc legitimately good very impressed with the ytw who wrote it

No literally! I really liked it when I was reading it. the library snatching it away ruined my momentum but I remember thinking it was so cool when I was reading it. It was so gender and so vibey like love the concept so much.

now all I gotta do is decided if I should start the book over again or just go back to the beginning of the chapter I was on…

but it’s so crazy bc I was so into it I got my mom to read it but she’s a fast reader so by the time my borrow was up she was done w the whole trilogy asking me to talk abt it and I was like…first of all youre welcome second of all I got bad news for you. That was the second time too I gotta stop telling her to read what I’m reading until I’m almost done bc she’s so fast and wants to do a seminar abt it like it doesn’t take every ounce of my will power to finish one book let alone multibook stories

[thehuntress-rose]

Write your RPer Resolutions for 2023! (What are some goals for yourself as a writer? Improve descriptions? Plot with more members? Etc.

I really want to work on my consistency with replies. Outside of RP life has been chaotic for most of my time here and save for this past month, I saw a huge improvement since I moved! I just want to take the new year and continue with that momentum and be more involved in my plotting and reply schedule! 

I want to write more self paras! I feel like my characters go through so much behind the scenes that only ever come out in passing dialogue or HCs but I definitely want to be able to flesh out their experiences more via one shots. 

Cause an RP wide event, or at least be the driving force behind a big plot. I love to be involved in them, it brings me joy! But I want to have a character be the cause of something or just pioneer something that everyone can be a part of and craft a story that everyone can be excited to be a part of too. No ideas yet bestie ok.

Write at least one resolution, or “goal,” that you have as an RPer for your character(s)

Rose: Make more connections outside of her huntress connections. Normal friends! San: Same as above, BUT I also want her to start looking for her mom for realsies. This could def include a lot of people! Potentially a race to find her vs Gaston?? Kill the Beast! (Save the Wolf Goddess) Susan: Get her to a spot to do something I have wanted since I got her. She needs to find a better balance and acceptance for herself tho before she will let herself be happy. Maybe even tell someone that isn’t Jess about what she is! Dian: Get better about handling his vampirism. Relapse. Get Worse. Struggle. (Sorry bby) Being a vampire isn’t easy. Laurette: More magic stuff! I loved writing her farmer’s market thread with the fortune telling! Let her use her gift more! Amy: Do more with Foul! It is such a great concept and I feel like I don’t utilize it enough. Lilith: Begin her search for Merlin’s Objects to give to Belos! Also be that Cool, but Strict™ professor. Sophie: Pull her out of her shell and let people in more! She is still new so she has room to grow, but I’d like to see her make friends and potentially tell them what is going on with her.

Write at least one resolution IN CHARACTER for your characters. What do THEY want to accomplish or change in the New Year?

Rose: Visit Henry more often. Bury the Huntsgirl. Start her soft epilogue. San: Branch out more, humans aren’t so bad. Find her mother. Susan: Follow through with her campaign promises of making Swynlake safer for everyone. Help Magicks feel safer, no matter their kind. Dian: Get back to normal. Earn his family’s forgiveness. Laurette: Get passing grades, avoid drama! Maybefindaboyfriendtoookaybye. Amy: Find her fortune, hit some listener goals for Foul! Lilith: Gather Merlin’s Objects. Get her former protege back in line so that she doesn’t bring shame upon her good name. Sophie: Break her curse and go back home? Find true love?? 

List one or more characters you have never interacted with that you would like to do so

CLAYTON: I know you have a thing with Isa rn, but I will be ur wife pls

Genevieve: She’s so cool, be worsties with Rose. I think they’d be neat

Drakken: believe it or not I have not done a thread with him, also know u are with Vixey rn but I’LL BE UR ENDGAME BBY

Talk a bit about your plotting style – what plots are you most drawn to? Do you prefer to come with a fully-formed idea and plot off that, or throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks?

I feel like I kinda suck at plotting lol. I tend to take a backseat and I really do like to fill plot calls when I see them and I feel like I have something applicable. And people tend to do the same for me! BUT! I would say I am a throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks until we can sus out the vibes of a pairing. Then I just love vibing. One of my resolutions was to get better with doing bigger plots and maybe big plots aren’t the meat of the RP, but I feel like my best characterization writing comes from the ripples of those waves. I don’t feel like I am that forward with plotting like “hey I want x, y, and z to happen! Let’s use those as anchor points for the thread” but I WANT TO BE. New year, New Kit. I will only get better and more unhinged from here folks. 

But as for plots I am drawn to, I wanna say I love a plethora. I love larger ones with lots of moving pieces, I just really like to be a player in a long game okay?!?! Like the shark week plot, the knights in elfhame, the fall of the order, Dian’s death at the Gala. Love big dramatic plotlines that make the town talk. But I also love messy relationships like with Tom and Rose and Laurette and Phineas. I think for realism, more people should break up. I love a good doomed relationship. It’s who I am.

Talk a bit about character relationships – what relationship are you most drawn to? How do you prefer to approach shipping (if at all!)? What, specifically, are you looking for right now for your character relationships? 

I love love love characters who bond over shared experiences. Whether it be a trauma or a shared affliction, I just love bonds forged by understanding. Because we all seek to be understood in some way or another and I feel like those relationships tend to last the longest. I am drawn to families and friends who my characters can really bloom around and vice versa! I love a good ship, but I think most of mine have either been plotted out via “hey I want this vibe and for this long with this ending” or purely vibes. Sometimes characters are just meant to be organically and it feels so satisfying to let them have that!! But don’t get me wrong, I like to plan a terrible end lol.

As for relationships I am seeking now, I’d love for San to dip her toes into a human emotion she hasn’t felt before for a human (love) I just think it would be a beautiful and natural part of er character growth to have her find a human that she can feel as protective and soft over as she does her pack. I would love to see Claudette pop in, just to fill the current separation Laurette feels from Paulette since being in school. A sister closer in age might have a bit more understanding than the eldest in her eyes! And maybe some coworkers for Rose (work at Interpride!!) because she needs some work hijinks! 

Talk about your dash reply style and your Discord reply style! (And if applicable, also your doc reply style). What do you like about each type of interaction? What is something you feel is difficult? 

Dash: I feel like I can be so inconsistent with my dash replies. I went from literally not tracking them at all and digging through my reblogs to find threads when I started to actually tracking them in an excel sheet. So we are making progress. I might not have them all up to date, but PROGRESS. And I am actively trying to be better with my dash consistency, especially in the new year :))

Docs: These can go two ways for me; we can bang em out super fast or I will close the tab and forget to do it for days. (I hate having 30 tabs open, it stresses me out). But that being said, I do really like them because they allow you to keep a plot secret until you are ready to drop all of it. And it’s so much easier for 3 or more muns to collaborate because I feel like 3 way threads can get so messy and cluttered on the dash! 

Discord: I love discord threads. I dunno why, but it feels like less pressure to have length or flowery prose (unless it’s an AU then I will go HARD for that shit). It’s quick and snappy and I think the event servers are always poppin and have great stuff happening in them. 

Plotting Exercise! Pick one of the resolutions/goals in #3 and plan a rough guideline to how you could accomplish it. Here’s an example.

SUSAN hears about BRUCE wanting to start a support group and chats with him about what he would like it to consist of, she suggests an AA type forum for Magicks because she has wanted to make a change for that community for a while. SUSAN talks to SIMBA about the AA aspects and how they work, and the BOARD about the arrangements while BRUCE fills out the petition (backed by SUSAN of course). 

SUSAN gives a speech at TOWN HALL about seeking community when you feel alone, how bonds are made with shared experiences and feelings, and how everyone deserves to feel that sense of community no matter who you are. She encourages Magicks to have trust in one another for this program to work. 

The petition passes, a meeting room is reserved after TOWN HALL hours for discretion, SUSAN asks BRUCE to be the point person for MA (Magicks Anonymous)! 

Step 5: Everyone prospers

[pradaksj]

the swimming lessons

all rights reserved © pradaksj

↳do not repost, translate, or claim as your own.

❧ pairing⟶  jungkook/reader

❧ genre⟶  swimminginstructor!jungkook , fluff, a bit of comedy? head canon/bullet points 

❧ rating⟶ e for everyone??? none??? idk how ratings work lol i just know that m = the dirty, which this story has none of

❧ word count ⟶ 5,000 

❧ summary ⟶  accidental swimming lessons with jungkook were definitely worth the money 

❧ a/n ⟶ i literally dreamt something similar to this in like january and told myself i'd write about it when i had the time so hear i am :)) this goes out to all my folks who can’t swim !! i'm on the same boat with you , get it?  cause we can’t swim ... ok anyways ... enjoy ! (note: i have not proofread this yet so sorry for any mistakes!! ill get to it soon !! ) 

“hello, welcome to lucky duck swim school, how can i help you?” the receptionist, who was loudly chewing her gum, sounded more like an automated voice message than a person...

see today was your first official swimming lesson

yay!! 

how fun!! ...

://

totally not embarrassing for someone your age !!!

honestly, it wasn't your fault you didn’t have any family members or friends with a big pool you could learn in growing up 

and by the time you did, you were too much of in an awkward phase to be properly taught

aka your body absolutely refusing to float on its own anymore

but after several trips to the beach with friends and attending different pool parties, you were tired of being made fun of !! 

no longer would you remain at 5 feet and under !!! not on your watch ! 

and so here you were, ready to start your journey into the world of swimming :)) 

“hi i um have a swimming lesson at 3 with um ... i believer her name was um—” 

hmmm what was her name ??? jennie??? no, maybe it was aaliyah ??? no that wasn’t it.... 

the receptionist taps on her keyboard buttons, her long nails making a noise 

pop, her bubblegum goes 

“jungkook” 

“yeah jungkook” you mindlessly say. 

wait 

WAIIITT

jungkook????

ummmmm 

that was not the game given to you by the last receptionist 

jungkook is a boy’s name !!! 

you didn’t want a boy instructor !!! 

not with the way you were looking 

“i um—i had asked for a girl instructor—” you awkwardly mention 

she rolls her eyes

um RUDE 

she continues clacking with her keyboard, looking for god knows what 

she sighs 

“there’s no slots with female instructors available for today, nor for the rest of the month, the earliest i can probably squeeze you in by is july.” she bluntly states. 

JULY??? 

july was when you needed to already know how to swim !!

that’s the peak of summer ! 

there was no point in knowing during winter or any other season besides summer for that matter 

and you were not going to get made of by your friends this year

no no NO

“soo do i reschedule you or.....” 

you sigh 

“no ill take it” you pout, resembling a child. 

“it it makes you feel any better, jungkook’s our best instructor, most popular too” 

wink 

oh yeah that makes you feel so much better 

>:( 

you were going to make a complete fool out of yourself in front of the so called “best instructor” 

“well go get yourself washed up, get into the pool, and jungkook will be with you shortly” she smiles, her attitude now changing now that (what looked to be a supervisor) was passing by. 

what a bi—

flip flop. flip flop. flip flop. 

your sandles press onto the water on the floor of the girls locker room, a grouchy look now on your face 

this wasn't fair 

you made an appointment with a female instructor!! 

you didn’t care if he was the best instructor or the most popular ...

squeeaaakkk , you twist the rusty shower handle

...because now you were you were going to be judged for your lack of skills 

not that you had any to begin with, but still! 

god, you sounded like such a karen ... 

it’s just ...

a guy instructor ??? 

really??? 

you understood that this wasn’t elementary school anymore and boys certainly didn’t have cooties anymore but like :// 

no no, you had to give this jungkook guy the benefit of the doubt

if he was one of the best, it was clearly because he was professional and good at what he does 

putting your worries to rest, you turn off the shower 

this was going to be fine

just fine 

clearly your worries were not put to rest 

just a temporary halt 

:) 

pat. pat. pat. 

okay let’s get it ! 

making your way out to the pool, you dip your foot in 

ooooo 

cold

VERY cold indeed 

1 ...2...

you dip your whole leg in, quickly using the momentum to place your whole body in 

“5 feet and below ... you’re my bitch !!” you think to yourself 

your hand still clearly gripping onto the ledge, still afraid of accidentally reaching 6ft

.... now to wait 

“megan seems to have fractured her leg last weekend on a rollerskating day gone bad, so you’ll be taking up her appointments for the next month of two until she’s cleared for work” 

huh ???

“but—” 

“also she, well now you i guess, have a lesson to teach at..” 

jungkook’s supervisor looks down at his watch 

“oh i guess in 30 minutes, could’ve sworn it was at 4..” he mumbles that last part to himself

30 minutes?! 

“don’t worry i’ll up your pay for the remaining time that she gets better” 

he winks ;) making a clicking noise with his mouth before leaving the staff room 

jungkook sighs 

today was supposed to be an easy day :/ 

a simple cleaning of the pool along with a couple of measly hours of being the lifeguard and that would’ve been it but noooo 

he just had to be the highest rated swimming instructor on the company website 

he couldn’t complain though, sometimes it was fun reading the reviews past students left, even if sometimes they were a little too...

whats the word...

provocative? 

it often made him wonder if he was in fact an actual good swimming instructor or if the high highly rated reviews were for other reasons.... 

honestly it’d be dumb of him not to acknowledge the amount of googly eyes he’d get ranging from the mother’s of his younger students to his actual adult students (female and male) 

he just liked to think that didn’t come into play when they wrote their reviews 

hehe 

changing into his black fitted rash guard, he glanced at megan’s schedule 

name : y/n 

age: 23 grown

swimming level: beginner  aka noob. 

he chuckles to himself 

well won’t this be fun 

he couldn’t lie beginner adult swimmers were always a spectacle to watch 

they almost reminded him of baby ducks learning how to swim 

only that they’d verbally curse their frustrations here and there 

quickly showering, he begins to make his way to the pool 

hmm, he wonders..

what should he eat after today’s lesson? 

a bacon cheese burger sounded really good 

maybe even grab himself some birria tacos from that new restaurant that just opened near his apartment 

hmm no he had to start spending less on takeout 

sigh 

looks like it’d be rame—

woah 

as corny as it sounded, he could’ve sworn he felt his heart skip a beat 

because whoever it was in that pool was pretty, like really pretty 

hOly ????? 

wowzers 

you couldn’t be y/n ... could you?!?!?! 

you were the only person who looked 23 years of age in the pool ...

ermmmmmm 

mayday mayday 

jungkook.exe has STOPPED WORKING  

whoever this jungkook person was, sure was taking their time 

deciding to have some fun before your lesson, you begin to gently play with the water 

swish. swoosh , the water goes 

soon you’d be well on your way to becoming the next michael phelps 

hehe 

maybe with time you’d even be able to a somersault in the water like your friend always—

“y/n?” a voice from behind says your name

ah finally 

taking in a deep breath, you turn your attention to the so called “best swimming instructor” 

OH.

MY .

GOD. 

WHAT ?????? 

this man looked like he came straight out of GQ magazine !!!! 

this HAD to be some mistake , there was just no way ... 

your cheeks feel as if they were burning up 

probably because they quite literally were 

there was no way you’d be able to come here every saturday for the next month, not without fawning for this dude every single minute 

“u-um” 

of course you were a stuttering mess

of FuCkiNg course 

“that’s me” 

cue the awkward smile 

:) 

“be professional” jungkook tells himself

at the end of the day, you were his student 

any crush on you would just have to wait until of course ... you were no longer his student 

for now the only goal was : teach you how to swim 

the next one down the list being : to take you out on a date ! 

he offers you a handshake 

wow he had a strong grip 

“i’m jungkook, i’ll be your swimming instructor for the next month” 

he flashes you his all too famous smile

there was just no way this man was real

just nO wAy 

“um..” 

crap, you were still holding his hand! 

idiot, idiot, idiot ! 

“sorry” you awkwardly laugh 

ha ha ha 

so funny 

:/ 

god did you just want to hide to disappear 

“it’s fine” he laughs 

even his laugh was attractive :( 

ugh 

“so y/n, before we begin with anything, i think it’s important to review about what kind of things you already know and what you don’t” 

oh right ... 

for a moment you had COMPLETELY forgotten you were here for swimming lessons 

how embarrassing 

“oh um..” 

um, um , um. 

IS THAT ALL YOU KNEW HOW TO SAY???? 

“so like floating, holding your breath underwater, pushing, gliding, arm movement, that kind of stuff,” he explains 

you knew a cool trick to make it look like you were water bending :D 

of course you weren’t going to admit that here 

silently you nod your head no 

he gives you a reassuring smile, sensing your timidness 

“that’s fine, only more for us—” he corrects himself, “for you to learn,” he laughs 

hey you weren’t complaining 

;) 

“so i personally always like to start off with teaching my students how to float. as long as we get that down then you’ll have no problem learning the rest” 

gosh his smile was so infectious 

shaking your head, you reminded yourself that this was your teacher 

+ you paid 300 bucks for these classes, so you couldn’t afford to be giving him the googly eyes all day 

you were so cute :( 

jungkook couldn’t help but find you so endearing 

the color of your swimming goggles even matched your swim suit :(( 

so cute ! 

“okay so the first thing i want you to practice is going underwater for a couple of seconds, just so you get used it,” he instructs, “i’ll demonstrate” 

taking in a deep breath, he goes down under 

1...2...3 

he’s back up 

pausing for about another three seconds, he takes in another deep breath of air before going back under 

1...2....3...4....5

he repeats the same thing over and over, until the max count becomes 20. 

“use my finger as your reference of when to go up, but come up for air whenever you feel like you need to. it’s important to go at your own pace, so don’t feel pressured to get it the first try” 

no pressure at all 

okay 

“you ready?” 

you nod your head 

“okay, deep breath in”

you sink your head underwater, mentally counting the three seconds before going back up 

“good job,” he gives you a high five, and you almost feel like a schoolgirl, “now let’s try to five seconds” 

woo!!! 5 seconds here you come !! 

taking in a deep breath you go down under again 

1....2.....3....4...5

easy peasy ... LEMON SQUEEZY 

“okay now to ten” 

1.....2......3......4.....5......6....7

umm

now why were these seconds going by slow all of a sudden? 

sucking it up you manage to make it to 10, but not without being out of breath 

“you okay?” he’s quick to ask 

yup, totally fine ! 

you definitely didn’t see the gates of heaven for a quick moment :D 

nodding your head, you enthusiastically say, “let’s go for 15″ 

he smiles at your enthusiasm

ahh so cute 

“1....2.....3......4......5.......6......7......8......9.....10.....11.....12....13...

nope nope nope

you were not going to make it to 15 

immediately you make your way back to the surface, trying to catch your breath 

“hey you did amazing,” he immediately reassures you, “remember as long your going your own pace then you’re doing just fine” 

<3 

well doesn’t that make you feel better 

you wonder if he’s this kind to all his students 

besides the most obvious reason, there was no question as to why he was the “most popular” instructor 

and to think you had been complaining earlier !! 

and soon you’re back underwater, going at your own pace until finallyyyy you’re able to make the 20 second count 

“nice !!” he genuinely celebrates with you, making you feel completely proud for yourself 

“okay now that we have that done, we can move onto learning how to float facing both front and back” 

ohhhhh

he was just thinking ahead 

cool :o 

“so what i want you do is first relax,” he laughs, gently pushing your stiff shoulders down 

as if your blush couldn’t get any deeper 

“now my personal belief is that all humans can naturally float, just that for others, it takes a bit of a push to get them at that state,” he begins to explain 

others meaning people like um you 

“the key to floating is to relax” 

oh you’ve heard that before

many MANY times and each time you’ve tried to so called “relax” you just end up sinking 

“the moment you fight or stress for even a tiny bit, you will sink. now i know what you’re thinking, ive heard that before” 

damn 

he was good 

“but sadly it’s true, until you learn to relax then you’ll be able to swim” 

you sigh 

this was where it became hard 

you were the queen of stress 

you and stress went hand in hand almost like a married couple 

it was just that deep water was scary !! very very scary !! 

the amount of horror stories you’d seen on tiktok was enough for you to know, ocean = scary 

“so here’s what i need you to do, i need you to place your arms on top of the water like as if you’re going to fly” 

you follow his commands 

he separates your arms, which had been too close together, giving them a small rub 

“remember you need to relax y/n,” he chuckles, feeling the tension in your arms

“relax, i need to relax,” you repeat 

“okay now right now when i tell you, you’re gonna take a deep breath in and look down, from there you’re gonna let you body move forward. so remember you’re not gonna jump, you’re just gonna let your body glide forward and float. almost as if you’re flying to me,” he explains 

mm it was easier said than done  

“you ready?” 

“okay deep breath in” 

you inhale a deep breath in 

“look down” 

you do that as well 

“and let go” 

slowly your body begins to rise on its own 

oh my god !!!!! 

you were about to float!!!!! 

the day has come !!!

no more staying at 5 feet and under 

you were ready to hang with the big kids :D 

but as quick as the momentum came, the faster it left because soon you felt yourself sinking, the breathing exercise jungkook had made you do now coming in handy 

no!!!! 

you almost had it :( 

it was right in your grasp, only to have it snatched away 

not wanting to offend you, jungkook keeps his giggles to himself 

“hey at least you almost had it,” he comforts you, “let’s just try again” 

you sigh, now letting your doubts creep in 

because of this, this time your body almost immediately sank this time

he frowns 

you were losing confidence :/ 

“come on i’ll help you” 

grabbing your hands, he signals for you to follow his breathing pattern

“deep breath in” 

“deep breath out” 

god, was his voice soothing 

“i need you to relax y/n, let everything go” 

a soft feeling of relaxation washes over you, similar to that feeling you’d get when you were on the verge of sleeping

“i’m gonna let you go at the count of three, and then you’re going to float, okay?” 

silently you nod, knowing that speaking would only cause you to tense up again 

“1...2....” 

he lets go, and soon you’re floating, just like he said you would 

you hold your breathe for a good while before standing back up, a huge smile on your face 

“holy shit! i did it!!” 

he gives you high five with both of his hands, for a second holding them before letting go 

“now let’s try floating on your back” 

he notices that there’s now a fire in your eyes that wasn’t there before

clearly you were now more determined to learn, excited too

preparing yourself to float once more, you realize you were missing something.... 

“jungkook...” 

he tilts his head, confused by the faint blush on your cheeks 

“do you think you can um—” 

now it was his turn to blush 

“o-oh yeah” 

what was his problem??? 

you were a student asking for help 

that was all ...

point blank. 

he helps you get on your back, his hand placed under your back as a way to keep you up 

“1....2....” 

you float easily again!! 

“nice!!” he smiles 

summer, here you come !! 

“okay so we’re gonna keep practicing that for the remaining time that we have and next week i’ll start teaching you about stroke techniques and which ones are easiest to do” 

nodding your head, you practice your floating by the end of the hour  having it practically mastered 

the two of you get out of the pool, now drying off 

“you’re a really fast learner y/n,” he compliments you 

hehe 

you mean, you didn’t wanna brag butttt 

you were a fast learner indeed 

“thank you,” you say in return, “but that’s only because you’re a great teacher” 

woah 

did you really say that :o 

aren’t you feeling a little bold today y/n  

his blush returns for the second time today

well technically you weren’t in class anymore ... 

a little flirting wouldn’t hurt right? 

if only he knew what to say .... 

hmmmm 

“well at least you won't ever drown!” 

HUH???????

jungkook, you idiot !!!!! 

someone needed to smack him straight in the face for that ! 

at least you won’t drown????

no fucking shit 

well there goes his chances with you now going down the drain 

but to his surprise, you laugh 

“you’re right, i won’t,” you say in return, “well i’ll see you next weekend jungkook” 

you flash him a smile, and he was certain he felt butterflies in his stomach 

walking into the girl’s locker room, you let out a sigh of relief

wheeeeew ! 

faking confidence was hard ! 

very VERY hard 

“so today you’re going to learn how to stroke so you can officially be called someone who knows how to swim, next week you’ll learn to tread water and continue perfecting your swimming, and then the final week i’ll teach you some fun extra things” 

“sounds good,” you say, definitely excited to learn more. 

“okay so now that you know how to float, right now when you float facing downward, you’re going to pull against the current with your arms, alternating each one. now the tricky part is that while you do that, you also have to paddle your legs a little and come up for air when you need to, and when you’re back in the water you should slowly be exhaling bubbles of air rather than holding your breath” 

well that sounded hard :/ 

“let me give you a demonstration,” jungkook says

he’s quick to float facing downward, showing you the maneuver he wanted you to learn while coming up for air every five seconds

thought it was a little childish, he somehow still looked good doing it 

he truly was blessed with the looks of a god 

he comes out the water

“okay now your turn” 

you nod your head, that determined look you had on your face last week now returning 

following his example, you begin your attempt at paddling and stroking your arms at the same time

SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! 

immediately you begin to panic and water begins to splash everywhere, including on jungkook 

noticing your panicked state, jungkook is quick to grab you and place you back on your feet 

“hey hey, i got you,” he comforts you, not wanting you to feel discouraged 

you sigh 

:/ 

well that was embarrassing 

“remember y/n you have to learn to coordinate everything, so think of it this way. your legs have to always be paddling, it’s the arm and coming up for air that switch roles. when you come up for air, it’s only your legs paddling, while when you’re head is back underwater it’s both your legs and arms paddling. once you get that pattern, the bubbling will come naturally” 

you make an ohhhhh face

you could do that ! 

“remember what i told you last weekend y/n, you need to relax and be comfortable so you can build confidence. there’s no need to panic because i’m here,” he smiles at you 

gosh this just wasn't fair >:( 

cute and charming ???? 

this boy really had it all 

not wanting to disappoint, you try one more time, failing once again 

now you were frustrated :/ 

“damn it,” you mumble to yourself, a sadness to your voice

jungkook feels his heart swell 

he didn’t like seeing you sad :( 

but doggy paddling was the most basic technique he could teach you so he couldn’t really cheer you up by offering a different technique 

you needed to learn to doggy paddle before you could move on to the more bigger strokes

damn it ://  

“hey don’t feel bad about not getting right away,” he gives you a small smile, “i remember when i first started learning it took me forever to even learn how float, so the fact that you’re already at this point is enough of an accomplishment” 

well that makes you feel little better ... 

“but you were probably a kid, im ...” 

old , is what you want to say 

figuring what you were gonna say, he only laughs 

“who said i was a kid? i was probably like 19″ 

whaaaaaattttt! 

assuming he was your age (which he was), you do the quick maths in your head 

that was like .... 4 years ago ! 

how the hell did he get so good in such little time???? enough to be teaching courses ??? 

“not knowing how to swim is nothing to be embarrassed about y/n, if anything it takes a lot of courage to even sign up for a class so don’t beat yourself up too much for not getting it right away” 

he ruffles your wet hair, a small affectionate gesture 

you didn’t know how it was possible but you were falling for this man and QUICKLY at that 

he was just so ??$%@^! 

UGHHHH

“so let’s try one more time, and if you still can’t get it then we’ll push it to next week, a free extra lesson on me” 

eeeeek 

though the temptation to purposely fails was very intriguing indeed, you still had to try for the sake of it 

if you got it, you got it, and if you didn't well .... 

an extra week with jungkook it was :D 

“you ready?” 

you nod your head 

“1...2...” 

you float and begin to paddle, this time actually getting the hang of it !!!

you hear jungkook’s muffled voice from above the surface, “there you go!!” 

holy shit ! 

you officially knew how to swim !!! 

at least enough to save your own life if push came to shove 

once you were out of breath, you stand back up, a grin on both of your faces 

for jungkook it was hard not to tackle you in excitement so instead he settled for a very enthusiastic high five 

“you did it!” he cheers 

“ahhh!” you giggle like a child 

“from here on out, the rest is a piece of cake!” 

yay yay yay !!! 

“now let’s start working on deeper strokes, maybe we’ll even have time to throw in backstrokes!”

:////

noticing your changed expression, he awkwardly laughs while scratching his neck 

“or maybe not” 

this week was the final week of swimming lesson with jungkook

:(( 

last week’s lesson of treading water and perfecting your swim seemed to had gone by in literally the blink of an eye ! 

and so today was possible the last time you’d see jungkook unless you managed to grow the balls and ask him out once that clock hit 4, once you were no longer his “student"

by now you were 100% sure you liked the dude... like a lot 

and he was definitely someone you wanted to get to know outside of this pool 

you just weren’t sure if he liked you the same way 

you mean yeah there were definitely times that had you raising an eyebrow here and there, but you always excused it as him simply being a kind hearted person by nature 

because clearly his five star rating on the company’s website had to come from somewhere 

not that you checked or anything....

who were you kidding 

yes you did

your favorite review was the one that went..

“wow!! this dude is amazing !! came here for beginner lessons and even i found myself fawning for the dude , and i don’t even play for that side of the team !! not only were his lessons thorough, but he’s a very charming person ! 10/10 recommend!” 

and so you were stuck 

did he liked you or was he just treating you like he treated everyone?? 

“ahh y/n,” jungkook’s voice suddenly brings you back to reality 

“today’s our final lesson!” he announces, not sounding too sad

in fact he sounded excited  

damn :/ 

he playfully jumps into the pool, today being his so called “fun day” 

“so since today’s your last lesson i thought i could teach you how to do a.....” 

he pauses for dramatic purposes 

“SOmERSAuLT!!”

immediately your eyes light up 

ahhhhhHHHH!!!! 

you always wanted to learn how to do a somersault in water, remembering the number of times you’d look at your friend in jealousy whenever she did one 

“you ready??” 

eagerly you nod your head yes

“okay so the steps to doing a summersault is first of course, you need to take a deep breath” 

okayyyy 

“from there you tuck your chin to your chest, next you do the moment of the somersault by swinging your chest forward and gently kicking out your legs, so basically forming a ball and then kicking out.  naturally, if you have enough momentum, you’ll spin, but if you don’t just use your arms to complete it” 

“think you can give me a demonstration?” you innocently ask 

he winks at you, “of course i can” 

taking in a deep breath, he follows his own instructions, and you watch he perfectly executes his somersault 

“woahhh, that was so cool!” you say, even now finding the trick to be amazing 

“now i dont expect you to get it right away, so right now that you try i’m going tog hide you thought the movement so you get the gist of it” 

sounds fair enough 

you weren’t trying to drown on your last day either 

“okay, you ready?” 

“yes” 

“let’s get it!” 

taking a deep breath in, you feel jungkook’s hand get placed on your back, ready to push you so you could do the somersault 

“1...2...” 

and slowly you feel yourself spin with the help of jungkook, a smile already forming on your face 

“ahhh!” you smile big and wide, causing Jungkook to smile along with you 

“you think you’re ready to try it on your own???” 

“yes sir” 

“okay 1....2....” 

mustering up as much as force you possible could, you push yourself into ball and successfully do the somersault 

YUPPPPP 

WHOSE DOING IT LIKE YOU???!$%@$!

feeling an immediate rush of adrenaline, you begin to splash water all over once you come back up for air, declaring an all out water fight with jungkook 

soon the two of you are chasing one another, you now using your new swimming abilities to get away 

hehe 

you’re a swimmer 

:D 

the sound of jungkook’s infectious laughter fill the air and soon you feel him grab your waist at an attempt to stop you 

“gotcha” he says, and he turns you around to face him 

slowly each other’s heavy breathing becomes relaxed, and it’s as if you’ve felt a shift occur in what you considered your new “friendship” 

“so....” he awkwardly says, hands still wrapped around your waist 

his was was RED

like cherry tomatoes red 

this only makes you giggle 

if you had doubts before, you DEFINITELY didn’t have em anymore 

he liked you :)))) 

and you liked him :)))) 

and in ten minutes you were officially no longer his student so......

“there’s this new restaurant that opened near my place....” you say 

immediately his eyes light up 

“cancun eats?” 

you nod your head and he gives you a toothy grin 

“i was wondering if you’d want to go out some time...” you muster up the courage to ask him out 

%^@%!@&!@^&@%! = jungkook’s brain 

holy crap !!! 

you liked him!!! 

he wasn’t just delusional !!! 

“hello?? jungkook??” you laugh, waving a hand in front of his face for jungkook.exe had truly stopped working this time 

nodding his head yes like a child,  the two of you being to lean closer to another, the clear goal in mind being each other’s lips

because honestly you’d come this far now, might as well give him a .... 

“wait!” he suddenly interrupts  he glances at the digital clock on the wall, remembering your final lesson officially ends at 4

because no way in hell was he going to get fired for kissing a student on the clock 

3:59 

.....

4:00 

“okay now,” he smiles, and you only roll your eyes, happy to have taken up on those swimming lessons. 

a/n : i was gonna make this longer but this was always meant to be a small little head canon so :))) pls give this a like, comment, or a reblog if you enjoyed it !! (if u can of course) and my ask box is always open for whatever !! :)) see yall next time 💞

[shewhohangsoutincemeteries]

Okay so when the VA show comes out we have to have episode by episode debriefs because I just KNOW its gonna be a hot mess and tbh i don’t even care, because the teenage me is just psyched (though I do agree with you that what we really need is a Bloodlines spin off because Sydney and Adrian are just aghhhh)

The thing I’m sad about is that they didn’t cast a Russian actor for Dimitri (the film had Issues but it was fun as fuck and Danilla was great) and I’m a little disappointed that the whole Romanian heritage of the characters is gone but 🤷🏻

So long as we get Dimitri in a duster, true Christian snark and some inanely stupid hijinks i think my nostalgia will go far enough to let me enjoy the show

so FIRST of all, sometimes I swear we might be soulmates 😅 I have never met someone who shares my ridiculous amounts of love for so many things and fictional characters lol. clint, tony, buffy, sydrian, you just get me lmao

But yes, yes, yes! I'm going to have to hunt down the episodes I think because peacock isn't available here but omg it would be so wonderful to have you to share the excitement (and probably criticisms lol) with.

I hope they haven't completely removed dimitri from his heritage, if only because so much of the story revolves around russia, what with rose's father, and their whole culture at court?

I'm interested to see j august richards in a villain role. I've heard bad things about the showrunner and after the shitshow that was the movie, I really just hope they do these books justice.

I will probably end up doing a re-read of both series before the show airs so be prepared for my absolutely chaotic feels over romitri and sydrian/adrian (I really do have a type when it comes to male characters lmao). and now that I think about it, the fact that I never wrote sydrian fic is INSANE considering how obsessed I was (and probably will be again once I start reading again lol)

also, I am so excited to read your new fic omg!!!! I'm working on the next chapter of ashes tonight and I don't want to risk losing momentum because I frickin' suck for writer's block, so I will read it tomorrow morning and freak out about clint then :) ahhhh, i'm so keen!!!!

[itsclydebitches]

Until proven otherwise, my headcanon is that both Ironwood and Watts survived and are going to team up again out of necessity lmao.

HI, ANON. So let me tell you about how this simple, silly sentence sent me down a 4k writing rabbit hole. “Lol I’m going to write a little parody about that” I thought to myself and then somehow? It got serious?? I honestly don’t know what this fic is, but I’m chucking it at everyone anyway. 

Also, I changed the whole “Atlas and Mantle are immediately submerged in water” plot point because it’s my coping mechanism and I get to choose the canon we ignore. 

***

Once upon a time there were two villains having a Very Bad Day.

The first, Arthur Watts, had survived an explosion, being buried under rubble, and the threat of a ten-story drop only to find himself suffocating amidst a magically produced fire. A horrible way to go, all things considered. Painful, of course, but more importantly, no self-respecting man should die with soot on his clothes.

Or leave behind a charred corpse. 

In fact, Watts had just begun to acknowledge the full indignity of his death when the momentum he'd felt — just there on the periphery of his awareness — suddenly ceased, Atlas crashing into Mantle and throwing him with a squawk in the process. His head took a nasty hit against one of the desks, the smoky gray of the room growing darker, and by the time Watts had come to, the fire had been replaced by water.

Ice-cold water, lapping up to his knees.

"Well," he said, lifting a sodden boot. "I suppose this is an improvement."

***

Elsewhere, James Ironwood — former General of the now sinking Kingdom of Atlas — was lying facedown on the stone of the outer vault, contemplating his choices. Upon reflection, no, he didn't regret what he'd done, but it would have been nice if things had turned out...any way other than this.

"Fuck," he said to the empty hall, enjoying the reverberation. He deserved that much at least.

In time, Ironwood was able to pick himself up off the floor, supported as much by the fact that he'd been knocked out by his own blast as his shaky, barely-there aura. Up the elevator running on emergency dust reserves, through the corridors that groaned ominously under damaged supports. Ironwood headed towards the military headquarters purely out of habit and as he did the sound of water grew stronger, almost like waves, until there was an inch of it across the floor, more trickling in from the staircase. Ironwood had been watching his boots splash with each step, almost mesmerized, and didn't look up until another pair unexpectedly entered his view.

Watts froze in the act of wringing out his pantleg, eyes wide. His expression, the water, how the hallway tilted downward at a slight angle... it all felt like something out of a dream. Ironwood just watched as Watts watched him, until his eyes traveled to the gun clipped on his belt. Ironwood hadn't even realized he'd picked it up.

"Here to kill me, James?" Watts said.

"No." He knew it was true as soon as he'd said it. The mere thought of starting another fight right now was... exhausting. "Do you intend to kill me?"

"Oh really. Does it look as if I'm in a position to fight you? Do use your head for once. I have no weapon, no aura — damn fire ate it all up — I feel as if I've swallowed a hot coal, I am wet — "

Ironwood turned partway through the ramble, meandering back up the way he'd come. He'd passed through two checkpoints before realizing that Watts was not only still talking, but following him.

"What do you want?" he asked, more to shut the man up than out of real curiosity. If Watts was capable of reading the difference between the two, he didn't show it.

"Cinder."

"Cinder?"

"I don't make a habit of allowing people to try and murder me without consequence, James!"

"She's gone."

"Yes, thank you for that stunning bit of info! There's no possible way I could have realized that for myself. What's gotten into you? They left us, fool. Salem, Cinder, Neo, Emerald, even your so-called allies... they all deserve the worst that we can grant them. Though right now, I'd settle for wringing that idiot Pietro's neck. Ten years I gave to that research and he rendered it obsolete with a single report, all because he wanted to play father to some stupid hunk of metal. I never would have gone to Salem if — " Watts cut off, hands balled into fists.

Ironwood just blinked dazedly, coming to a halt. He searched his uniform, the scroll he'd stashed there miraculously whole. Dimly, he registered that he should be feeling some sort of emotion right now.

"I can do that," he murmured.

"What?"

But Ironwood was already keying in the code, the desire to complete a task, any task, taking hold. Watts looked on, mouth twisted in a deprecating sneer.

"I already took out communications, in case you failed to notice."

"But not the trackers I had installed in my top scientists." Ironwood held up the screen where a small, red dot was blinking. "Pietro's still here. Looks like he's out near the mine with a second aura signature. If you want to...?" He wasn't going to finish that sentence.

"I see," Watts said in a tone that heavily implied he didn't. "And you'd just give me this information out of the evilness of your heart?"

Ironwood considered that. "I killed a man yesterday, tried to kill two others, and was ready to bomb all of Mantle to keep the rest of my Kingdom safe. I don't care what you do with the man who betrayed me."

"...fair enough."

Except after five steps Ironwood realized that Watts wasn't following him. He was looking down at his arms, still as a hunted hare.

"You put trackers in all your scientists?" he asked.

"A requirement I implemented after you went missing."

"Ah! Ingenious. Lead the way then."

***

The way led to the tundra, an environment that neither of them were prepared for. Watts was wet from the waist down and Ironwood had long ago learned that snow and metal didn't mix. Neither had the aura for the kind of storm that was raging either. Luckily, the panic of Salem's invasion had left plenty of vehicles to purloin and soon they were speeding East with the heat on, the faint beeping on Ironwood's scroll growing stronger.

He'd felt the impact of his city crashing down and the two of them had clamored out of Atlas' husk, dropping into rubble and cracking ice. Still, the true destruction wasn't evident until they were moving away from it. Through the rearview mirror, Ironwood could see pillars of smoke from fires that the water hadn't yet smothered, dark shadows that could only be grimm, and Atlas itself, plunged halfway into Mantle. It wasn't noticeable from this distance, but all of it was sinking.

"I was lucky," Ironwood said, his voice hollow. His eyes flicked back to the expanse of snow ahead of them. "If Atlas had tipped the other way, the vault would have flooded. I'd have drowned."

Watts snorted. "I'm lucky. That damned water put out Cinder's fire. I'd have burned."

Neither felt particularly lucky and for fifteen more minutes, neither was keen to discuss it.

***

Once upon a time, two heroes were having a Very Bad Day.

"You've got to be shitting me."

Maria paused in the act of bandaging Pietro's leg, mechanical eyes narrowing at the two figures that had seemingly appeared out of nowhere. Watts sucked in a breath at the duo. Ironwood gave a small, awkward wave.

Then he nodded his head at the scene: one old, exhausted woman and a paraplegic currently bleeding into his chair. "So... going to kill him?"

Watts ground his teeth. "Well now that just feels like a fool's errand. Look at him. He's pathetic!"

Pietro was slumped at an uncomfortable angle, sporting a gash in his leg and an impressive display of bruises across his face. Maria, in contrast, seemed to have only lost her hair tie.

"Pathetic?" she spat. "Your lackey did this!"

"Who?"

"Angry girl with the creepy arm."

"Ah, it all comes back to Cinder." Watts pinched the bridge of his nose. "Yes, thank you for recognizing that I was her superior, but no, I didn't send her to kill the likes of you. Must have done it on her own, the little idiot. Don't believe me? I was in jail at the time, if I recall correctly. Isn't that right, James?"

"You were helping me hack Penny."

Maria let out a skin-crawling cackle. "Why do you think the girl was here? She blew a hole in the bottom of Amity! Penny tried to hold us up, but..." she swallowed, still pressing against Pietro's leg, but turned warily towards them. "You hacked her? You did that? What precisely do you think happens when a man who never learned to apply aura as a shield crash-lands in this hunk of junk!"

"I expect most men in that position perish," Watts said smoothly. "The fool is lucky to be alive, but he won't be for much longer if you keep trying to staunch the wound with your soiled gloves. Move aside."

"Get away from me!"

"Oh, put your stick down, you old bat. I'm trying to help."

"Why?" Ironwood hadn't realized he'd spoken until Watts was glaring daggers his way.

"So I can kill him later myself!"

Still surreal. Still dream-like in its absurdity. Ironwood listened to the bickering between Watts and... Mary? Maria? He wasn't even sure. He wandered away, content to gaze out through one of the windows at his Kingdom. Or what was left of it. He idly massaged his left arm, trying to rid himself of a pain that wasn't there, and when the howl of a grimm reached them across the snow, he shivered.

His unlikely companions screamed at each other loud enough to reverberate through the whole building. There were the sounds of two bodies trading blows, but only for a moment. Pietro, voice groggy and high-pitched with terror, demanded to know where his daughter was. 

"She's dead," Ironwood said. He didn't turn to see their expressions, didn't need to. "Winter she... she defeated me as the Winter Maiden. That can only mean one thing."

"One thing to you, perhaps." Ironwood did turn then, watching stoically as Pietro tried to right himself in his chair, Watts cursing as the leg continued to bleed. "Where is she? I want to see my little girl. I can heal her, fix her — " he broke off, doubling over with a cough that splattered more blood into his hands.

"Maybe you could have," Watts said, a cruel satisfaction in his voice. "If her little friends hadn't made her human."

Some of the pieces fell into place then. His Lamp, long missing, had apparently wound up in Neo's hands, then Salem's, before it was finally used by Cinder. Watts described — with immense pleasure — the plan the group had concocted and the wish they'd asked of Ambrosius. He'd been a bit preoccupied with bomb duty to learn the details, but he knew that Cinder lived and Ironwood, it seemed, knew that Penny had perished. What a tragedy. Do you know how to bring back the non-mechanical, Doctor?

Ironwood honestly thought the old woman was about to kill him, murderous intent put on hold only because Pietro collapsed then, curling in on himself as sobs wracked his frame. The only words that escaped the mess of tears were "Penny" and then "Maria," one hand reaching out blindly for comfort. Pietro found it, the two holding onto each other as Watts sat at their feet, grinning up at the display.

Ironwood thought only, So that is her name.

The other, crucial bit of info was that everyone was gone. Dead or evacuated, it didn't matter. As far as any of them knew, they were the last four in Atlas, with Salem on her way to destroy whatever kingdom next took her fancy. It was over. They'd lost. And despite the horror of it, the realization was oddly freeing too.

When Maria asked in a tone edging on hysteria what precisely they were going to do — because it seemed this was a "we" situation now — Ironwood suspected she meant in the short term. What were they going to do about their wounds? The grimm? Finding and reaching the others? But those were foolish concerns, the thinking of someone who'd never had a kingdom's life in their hands. Ironwood knew there was only one answer here, the same one he'd had from the start.

"You can do whatever you like," he said. The metal of Amity sparkled against the rising sun, leaving splotches of color behind his eyes. "I will defend Atlas."

Maria's mouth dropped open and Watts stared. Even Pietro ceased his crying long enough to suck in a breath.

"Defend it from what?" he asked.

Ironwood shrugged. "The grimm. Salem. I don't know. I don't care. To quote a former friend, I have never wavered in defending the Kingdom of Atlas against its enemies and I don't intend to start now. This is my city and I won't leave it."

"It's sinking!" Watts cried, overlapping with Maria's, "We need to help" and though so much softer, quieter, more innocent than the spittle Watts was scattering across the floor... that single word sank its teeth into Ironwood. The woman may as well have stabbed him.

"Help?" he said. "Help? I tried to help! Everything that I have done in the last two days — the last two years — my life! — has been to help not just Atlas, but everyone I feasible could. Don't talk to me about help when you and Ms. Rose did everything you could to stop me. I had planned to help the world and you all lied. You betrayed. You set your weapons against me and kept me from saving what parts of my Kingdom I could. Tell me again: what precisely did you do to help?"

He'd crossed the distance, one hand on his holstered gun and the other leaning against Pietro's chair, using it to leverage himself down into Maria's space. Ironwood didn't need to see her eyes to know the emotion they held.

"I," she spit, "didn't try to bomb a city."

And just like that the fight in him was gone. It had barely existed in the first place. Ironwood straightened, swaying slightly on the balls of his feet. "No. You didn't. So it's as I said, go help if you want. If you can." His gaze slid to Watts. "You were one of her men. That says it all." Pietro. "You helped them reveal Salem to the world. Will she have time to destroy the other kingdoms before the grimm do it first?" Maria. "And I don't know you, but you don't earn a prize like that without seeing combat." Ironwood lifted his metal finger, tapping it against Maria's goggles. She flinched away. "Can you honestly say you haven't made mistakes?"

"You and I are nothing alike!"

"I didn't say we were."

Ironwood turned and walked away, as steady as he could manage as the world grew a little darker, despite the sunrise. Behind him Watts' voice rang out like a shot.

"So that's it then? The captain goes down with his ship? You idiot!"

He paused. "Not quite. It turns out I'm not the only idiot around these parts. Ms. Rose left the vault open." One last turn to savor their shocked expressions. "That's where I'm going. There are still plenty of airships if you'd like to leave, but just remember: they abandoned you too."

Perhaps he should have been surprised that by the time his boots hit the snow, three more footsteps were sounding behind him. Frankly, in fourteen hours time Ironwood would barely remember their conversation, let alone everything that came after it. One of them drove back to the sinking city. Someone tested the ice before they cautiously crossed it. Someone else dispatched the stray grimm foolish enough to get in their way. Ironwood saw and heard none of it. He walked with the determination of a wind-up toy, wobbling now that he'd reached the end of his string. Cool blues, a shining gold, and then beautiful, miraculous grass. Ironwood ignored the murmurs of amazement behind him, dropping directly to his knees.

When his palms hit the ground, only one was capable of feeling how soft it was.

I need to update my arm, he thought, even as he curled into a ball and passed out.

***

When he woke they were already running out of time.

For the first two days Ironwood barely spoke to the others and thus he never quite figured out why they'd stayed. Had it been hopelessness? Spite? The all consuming thought that there was nowhere else to go? That Atlas, for all its rubble and slowly rising water, wasn't any different from what the rest of Remnant would look like soon?

Why not here then?

Especially when the vault, filled with wildflowers and an endless sun, made for such an enticing retreat.

"Soil's farmable," Maria said, running some of it through her fingers. It was a statement of fact, nothing more, and the three of them stubbornly ignored the implications of it.

"There's — " Pietro coughed, self-consciously clearing his throat. "There's plenty to salvage. Machinery to pull water from the humidity in here. First aid supplies. We could section off an area for our wa — "

Watts seethed. "If you finish that thought I will — "

"What?" Maria arched a brow. "Kill him? Like you've been saying for the last day?"

Day? Ironwood blinked. How long had he been out?

"I will!"

"Like you'd be able to. Just try it, beanpole."

They argued, and they threatened, but none raised their hands to one another again, and when they finally dispersed across the kingdom to collect what they could, none of the acknowledged what it was for.

Ironwood waded through the remnants of his home and didn't think about building another. Because the idea alone was absurd.

"Don't let the door slam shut," he'd said when they’d first left, nodding to the stone slab that had appeared after Penny had first arrived. Ironwood watched the three exchange glances, unsure if he was joking.

Fuck if he knew.

***

Those four days — or five, if Ironwood counted the one he'd lost — were conducted in a strange state of frenzy. None of them were in a position to be working on such a project, but when had the world ever cared for their needs? Pietro stayed behind in the vault, cataloguing what they'd found and making lists for what was still needed. His chair, while dynamic, wasn't meant for the sort of terrain Atlas had become and his wound was still healing.

He also seemed to appreciate the privacy, frequently mourning his daughter with an honesty that made them all uncomfortable. 

Maria went off to do the Gods only knew what, disappearing for hours at a time, then coming back wet, cold, and carrying little. Though she always had information. Which parts of the city were too grimm invested to traverse, which were now completely underwater, which were too unstable as Atlas tilted like a ship, disappearing beneath the waves. It gave them all focus and, surprisingly, something like hope. Whatever else she carried was usually small, such as the seeds filched from the bio laboratories.

"Couldn't take them all," she said, critically surveying the land, "what with so many of the labels getting lost in the crash. Don't want to eat something your lot has experimented on."

"You should. If we're lucky you'll mutate into someone bearable." Watts, taking stock of the clothing they'd gathered, didn't seem to realize that Maria was flipping him off.

He went on a deep dives (sometimes literally) for salvageable tech, most of it of a practical nature, but other pieces... not. Nothing had shifted Ironwood's world view quiet like day two, walking in on Watts looming over Pietro, assuming there was another fight brewing... only to overhear them exchanging theories, the conversation filled with as many insults as legitimate claims. Still, the seeds of camaraderie were there, and were perhaps easier to grow than originally thought. After all, Watts had once been one of them and Pietro, for all his heroics, had once entered Ironwood's office with a manic gleam in his eye, rambling about giving an aura to a machine. Defense technology at its finest!

 What was it Glynda had said? Ah yes, agreeing with young Ms. Nikos about how "wrong" it all was. But desperate times, desperate measures and all that.

They'd had that discussion, of course. Soon after Ironwood awoke, talk of Amity began again, this time about whether it was possible to send another message. With enough time and effort, not to mention luck... a short one, perhaps, and only sent to an individual scroll.  But what was the point? Who would they call? When no one could — or would — answer that question, the idea was dropped.

In the days since, Ironwood had fantasized about messaging Glynda. One of the few who'd ever been a true friend, perhaps the only one left alive who might care that he was still among the living... if Ms. Rose's message hadn't killed that too. Not that it mattered. Even if Amity wasn't a hunk of metal gathering ice, Ironwood hadn't a clue what he might say to her.

Dear Glynda,

Thank you. Sorry. Good luck.

Sincerely,

General James Ironwood

P.S. If things had ended differently, I would have asked for a second dance.

How ridiculous.

So he walked the broken streets of Mantle and climbed the streets of Atlas, more and more of it disappearing every day. Their hoard grew though, born of not just military property, but personal belongings as well. It wasn't as if anyone was coming to claim them. Unless more magic was at work, both cities would be miles beneath the ice before anyone crossed the border again. Still, Ironwood would always pause before packing away what he found in the hastily abandoned houses. Bedding. Utensils. The literal shirt off someone's back. He'd changed into jeans and a thick sweater the second day, taken from a collection of civilian clothes he'd placed into a locker years ago and promptly forgot about. The uniform felt... obsolete now, no matter that his goals remained the same.

He'd encountered Maria on one of those trips, admiring a basket of yarn in some nameless Atlesian's living room. Her shoulders had tensed at his approach, but she just snorted at the sight of him.

"You knit?" he asked, unsure of what else to say.

"No."

"Crochet?"

"No."

Ironwood didn't know any other crafts that involved yarn. "Then why are you taking it?"

Maria hummed. "Just a thought. That I might, someday, try to learn." She shook a book she’d pulled from the basket: Knitting For Beginners.

A stray thought indeed. The thing they still didn't talk about. The closest they got was on the fifth night when an explosion sounded outside, massive enough to unsteady them even deep within the vault. By the time all four of them had made it out and onto one of the roofs, the sky had turned a sickly yellow, followed by black tendrils that raced, turning, back and around on each other until everything went dark. The only light came from what little electricity they had running on generators and a red aura, pulsing from the West.

From Vacuo.

Realistically, it might have meant that they'd won. It wasn't as if Ironwood had any idea what the death of an immortal witch looked like. But the night wore on and they had no idea because that unnatural, starless black never receded. In time, Pietro wandered off and returned with two bottles he'd pilfered from somewhere, cracking the tops off on the side of his chair and passing them around.

They still didn't say it aloud, though the sky and the alcohol said enough already. Ironwood kept his eyes on the watch his mother gave him, hours ticking by until sunrise was long overdue. Atlas felt even colder now and that red, seeming to inch closer, sent a different kind of chill down his spine. The grimm that still prowled below had taken off hours ago, summoned by some unheard call.

Ironwood downed the dregs of his bottle and threw it into the city.

"Come on," he said. Ordered maybe, or asked. He wasn't sure he knew the difference anymore.

Blankets. Glasses. As many non-perishables as they could find. Generators. Tool kits. The building blocks of renewable energy. Clothing. Decorations. Wood to build small, individual dwellings.

Watts hoarded laptops and a small mountain of batteries, never showing them what he was working on, intensely protective.

Maria grew obsessed with entertainment, snagging every book, game, and video until there was a veritable library piled on the grass. She kept muttering about deserving a real retirement.

Pietro built a shrine to Penny, a simple stone monument to the left of the doorway. He tended to organize their supplies there, occasionally reaching out a hand to brush the code he'd inscribed with a laser. Whatever meaning it held, Ironwood couldn't read it within the ones and zeros.

And he... he found a cat. His last day, picking his way across dwindling islands until his eyes found the small, electrical fire just out of the water's reach. The cat had wedged herself into the rubble above it, trying desperately to keep warm.

She was as black as the sky above them and Ironwood was sure, when he reached out, that she'd run, terrified of his prosthetic hands. They certainly weren't any warmer, but she weakly crawled into them nonetheless. Ironwood held her securely against his left side, where his heart and flesh were, and thought with an absurd, internal laugh that he'd at least saved one.

There was so much left to do still, but their time was gone. That evening, eating what little they had the stomach for, water began to pour from the vault's elevator. First a trickle, then a deluge, until there was a sizable waterfall to admire. Ironwood sat on the steps with his unnamed cat on his shoulder, watching inevitability creep towards him.

He could still lie though.

"There's still time," he said, addressing the three behind him. "If you head up the elevator shaft and down the west hall, you can still break the surface. Find one of the remaining airships. Fly away."

Watts scowled, avoiding his gaze. He remained leaning against the doorway though. 

Maria and Pietro exchanged glances.

"I'd carry you," Ironwood offered to Pietro. They both knew it would be a death sentence with their combined deadweight, but he'd do it anyway.

"No," he said softly. "I did all I could already."

Maria. She was harder to read with those goggles, but it wasn't peace on her face. Guilt, more likely, but that had never stopped any of them before.

"It's damn cold out here," she muttered and marched back to the grass. Pietro followed her, Watts trailing not far behind. He turned back though.

"You coming?"

Ironwood didn't answer and eventually Watts left, heading into the meadow that stretched until you lost sight of where you'd been — and then reappeared there. A tiny pocket dimension, born of a magic now lost to this world. Ironwood figured that a bit of water and ice couldn't break it.

Probably.

He watched the flood cover the floor of the vault, then lap upwards, one stair at a time. There was a part of him, a part unimaginably tired, that thought he might just sit there. Keep rooted until the water was so high it was too late to do anything. That would be easy. Fitting, even. Shouldn't he go with his kingdom?

But then the cat — his cat — dug nails into his shoulder and Watts said something that made Maria screech. Ironwood sighed.

There were still things to protect, simple as that had become.

He turned his back on Remnant, now encased in an eternal night, and walked to the three who remained, cowering in an eternal day.

Ironwood allowed them one last choice and when they all nodded, he kicked the vault door shut.

[kckenobi]

Hi Kasey! do you have any writing tips for someone just starting?

Ahh hello!! First of all, I am SO excited for you to start writing, that's amazing!! And I'm honored that you asked!!

Okay hmm, tips, let's see........

1. Read a lot!! I've never taken a formal writing class in my life, but every book I've read feels like a masterclass of its own. And when you start reading with writer eyes, you pick up on things like pacing and sound dialogue, and learn tricks you can try in your own work. Plus reading is fun lol

2. Give yourself permission to suck!! Bad writing precedes good writing, it's inevitable. And it's so easy to write something awful and go "oh god I'M awful, I should just stop" but don't!! I have written so many cringey terrible stories in my life but, first and foremost, it didn't matter that they were bad because I had so much fun writing them. And second, my first bad story helped me write a better second story. And my one hundredth bad story helped me write a better one hundred first. There's a Ray Bradbury quote that's something like "write a story a week, and at the end of the year you'll have 52 short stories. It's impossible to write 52 bad ones in a row--cant be done." It's about the joy of it, and the growing—writing is one of those things that you can really only learn by doing.

3. Give yourself structure. The hardest part of writing half the time is having the discipline to actually do it lol, especially at the beginning. What's helpful for me is to have a routine, where I write about the same time each day (for me it's usually evenings!) But whatever works for you, try to be consistent and get momentum! Sometimes, the hardest part is getting started.

4. Have fun and enjoy the process!! My favorite writing book is called On Writing by Stephen King, and one quote from it is just so good: "Writing isn't about making money, getting famous, getting dates, getting laid, or making friends. In the end, it's about enriching the lives of those who will read your work, and enriching your own life, as well. It's about getting up, getting well, and getting over. Getting happy, okay? Getting happy."

Getting happy—that just about sums it up I think. I hope writing is all of that and more for you, dear anon :)))) and I'm so honored that you came to me to ask!! I wish you a wonderful writing journey, and I'd love to read anything you put out there!!

[yellowocaballero]

sorry if this is something people have already asked, but WOAW that’s a lot of writing in one day? that’s super impressive! can you say a bit about how you got to be able to write that much, and any tips for people looking to increase their output? i know everyone writes at different paces and such but i also know it’s possible to, like, change your pace lol. either way that’s super impressive!! i assume you take breaks in between projects? you’re one of my fave authors btw:)!!!

OTL My friends give me a hard time. The other children on the playground hit me with kickballs and call me a freak.

The short answer is: I dunno, I'm a freak.

The long answer is: I am very good at hyperfocusing. I can type extremely fast. I do not care if it's good or not and I don't get bogged down on every little thing. I do typically know what's happening next in the story, which is really important if you don't want to get stuck. I just really, really enjoy writing, and I always look forward to doing it and I want to do it as much as possible. I decide sitting down that what I'm writing will be as stupid as physically possible and that it's going to be the worst thing I've ever written. And then I just have a ton of fun writing the worst thing possible (sometimes, about 20k in, I realize it's good and then I have to start trying).

The advice is, I suppose: put aside thirty minutes or an hour (or...however much time you need) and decide to write as much as physically possible in that time. Like those timed writing challenges. Literally just type. The writing'll be crap, but it's about the momentum. And once you get comfortable with the feeling of just starting and not stopping, then you can use the writing skills you have to make the writing okay. But it's also like riding a bike, or any kind of skill - if you are still learning the skill then you are going to have to sit down and think every single thing over. You can't do that fast. I have to think very hard about everything I'm doing when I ride a bike or drive a car, but I've been writing for a long time and I don't have to think about it. So don't get pressed if the writing's slow. It means that you're actually trying to do a good job.

Also keep in mind that the flipside of the 'wrote a 23k story in 27 hours' thing is that I woke up at 8am, started writing, and did not stop until 1am. For a typical 9k day, I get off work at 5 and then go write until midnight nonstop. It's not so much about like, the fast fingers, as just sitting down and doing it for a weirdly long time. I can't give advice about writing for six hours straight because people shouldn't do that and also you should remember to eat because I forget to eat.

I take breaks between long projects most of the time! Sometimes it's a direct hopscotch between a lot of stuff, though. Like the last few months it's just been shit after shit after shit. I'm focusing on IRL stuff right now though so I'm not writing at this moment. It's very boring.

Hope that helped (?). Keep in mind I didn't give any advice on how to write well. Just how to write a lot of very bad stuff. But that's fun, I think :)

[xiaosean]

why you should watch douluo continent

the drama adaptation is such a good rendition of “soul land” and stayed true to the plot line and character development. it was fast-paced (perfect for me) but may be confusing for those who don’t know the story. i personally love the donghua, and i think the drama did an adequate job of portraying everything in their own way 😁 (read at your own discretion; this contains spoilers)

things i liked:

initially, i didn’t like the dreamscape bc wtf is it doing there? why is he hearing his mom’s voice in episode 1 (it just kills the entire momentum of the plot); and then after i got to episode 39... fucking ep. 39, i knew the dreamscape needed to be there in order to save tang san’s life; mr. wang who wrote the script, props to you.

the cgi 🥰✨ i had really low expectations bc if there’s shitty cgi like cql... i wouldn’t be able to handle it. but it’s so good ??? please, i know the ape soul beast was small and funny looking (bc they had to spend money on the water dragon lmao), but other than that, it was so good and how each and every character’s powers were able to shine

le outfits + makeup - they’re not super pale 😭😭😭 finally !!! and the outfits are so nice, SO SO NICE, each and every character holy hell

how they changed hu liena’s (aka. qian renxue) role in the drama --- she’s my fav female antagonist; she’s so good here, her character was annoying at first, but she’s so dynamic and independent, and just wants to impress her mom. you see her helping tang san + his squad during the last 5 eps because SHE CARES about her mom despite her strict upbringing 🥺 her and tang san have a ship name called 糖葫芦 (candied hawthorns) and i think that’s so cute hehe

the seven devils 😂 i loved the seven devils in this adaptation almost as much as i loved them in the donghua; each and every character got their own storyline, they’re not boring nor do they draw attention away from the tang san’s main plot, and you see so much development (esp. in ou sike and dai mubai)

headmaster, da shi, and er long trio! 黄金铁三角 iconic and they captured it so well 😭 they chose the actor for the headmaster so freaking well i’m screaming! he loves money so much and his little facial expressions as a third wheel is everything, the comedic relief! and da shi... i see y’all thirsting over calvin chen okay 😌 he’s so much better in the drama tbh & er long is majestic and amazingly powerful and cunning, i love her !!! and props to luo san pao, the best doggo ever!

the seniors! they basically perfected tang san’s relationship with dugu bo... it was antagonistic at first, but then they became besties over poison 😭❤️ i loved dugu bo’s character in here bc he was so funny & didn’t get social cues LMAO // the ape soul master was brief but he honestly made my day with how much he respected the tang family & how he took care of his father back in the day // 七宝琉璃 squad was also 🥰 (less hot than in the donghua lol) but they also somehow made jian yeye the comedic relief? i love how they’re so accepting of ou sike despite him being a support soul master

tang san’s mom - i can only hear her voice, but she made me cry & i love her for that

tang san ❤️❤️❤️ xiao zhan’s voice over just blended in with his character & it was just so wonderful; tang san in the donghua was smart, so fucking smart, cunning, but the kindest at heart; xiao zhan truly portrayed that and my most memorable part was when da shi said “your only flaw is that you let your emotions get the best of you” (this is so important), and you see him later try to control his emotions and not act rashly, especially when confronted with 时年 & 比比东 --- also crying scenes 11/10

bibi dong powerful, POWERFUL WOMAN, props to her voice actress, i got chills when she said, “你根本没有资格知道” // tang hao, wow he’s just like i imagined, but i wish he was a little more emotional in ep. 1 bc the blue silver plant in tang san is essentially his lover’s martial soul

how the concept of family was generated within the shi lan ke academy squad 🥺 it’s such a feel good drama, istg, makes you so happy when you’re having a bad day ✨

things i didn’t like:

xiao wu’s character portrayal (the scriptwriter’s fault, not xuanyi) // i honestly let it slide for the first 10 episodes bc i usually start falling for a character later on, it’s normal; but drama xiao wu didn’t fulfill the 小舞姐 in my heart 😔 i get that many people like her, but it’s not the same! xiao wu in donghua is beautiful, independent, and outspoken, BUT MOST OF ALL HER LOVE FOR TANG SAN IS OBVIOUS, you don’t need to say “一起去” every other line in the drama; i think this could have been remedied if they stayed true to the storyline and let tang san enter the secret dimension alone, bring the mythical herbs back, and have xiao wu prick herself to activate 相思断肠红 (they completely butchered the significance of the flower i’m so angry; fyi: the flower can only belong to you if your heart loves one person --- there’s the most beautiful backstory to the flower but drama douluo said nah). also, drama xiao wu is so clingy and she started exposing herself from the beginning... no momentum build-up whatsoever 😔 it’s 斗罗大陆, not 斗罗大陆: 小舞传 and sometimes it felt like she was being so insistent on following tang san around, i’m just 😓 

the whole canghui academy scheme --- it was confusing for 10 eps straight until they got to the end of it, but I guess the drama wanted to add that part in because they wanted to focus less on the competition and more on 变异武魂 (the mutated martial souls) in order to defeat bibi dong

how the beginning was so confusing 😫 i wish they just stuck with child tang san remembering his past life as a disciple in tang clan & then learning 玄天宝录 on his own bc that was such a great part of his character development + understanding of soul masters/their weaknesses; and the fact that he would rely less on his parents 

the kiss + confession at ep. 40 // could have done w/o it or even a simple forehead kiss; the confession from tang san was way too quick considering there’s little to no emotional build-up towards that moment (other than bibi dong doing all the work like the queen she is) and there’s no surprise element either? like we’ve been knew she’s a soul beast since ep. 5 🥲 and the kiss was awkward & like i said, sanwu’s love doesn’t need words or actions to confirm... it’s this innate thing that the audience should be able to see (if the scriptwriters focused a little more on BIG plot points that boost the sanwu relationship, then it would have been perfect) ^^ i wish they spent more time on the romantic aspect of the relationship bc even after 30 eps, they seem like siblings when OP said They’re Not.

overall thoughts:

this is purely my opinion, so please take it with a grain of salt! the cons imo were minor except for the development of the sanwu relationship; it doesn’t seem like romance to me 😔 but hopefully it’ll get better in the (maybe) second season when they take some time apart to grow? i’m surprised how much they referenced the original story (characters and such), and i am thoroughly impressed with WHERE THEY ENDED IT, and how they rounded all the new/old plot points together in a way that makes sense. i also don’t hate any of the antagonists, which is why this drama is so lighthearted and easy to watch. it’s not emotionally taxing (sans tang san crying bc xz breaks me heart 😭💕), and safe + enjoyable to watch with family! you’re gonna miss it once it ends, and i think that makes a drama successful 😁 also i’m not gonna go into depth about the mysterious ending bc i might spoil it for those who want to watch the donghua LMAO (but if you want to know my theories, shoot me an ask)

[mejomonster]

hottest guys in xena:

1. Marcus - obviously, he’s a parallel for Xena, one of Xena’s genuine loves and I think her best one-off romance stories in the show, genuinely a best friend, and he went through his own entire redemption and hero’s journey. absolutely lovable. i miss him. one of my favorite side characters.

2. Draco - ok yes, he’s usually the bad guy. literally the bad guy of ep 1. but also? he’s hot. probably the hottest guy on the entire show (its just you know marcus is all around hero xena-equal material so i adore him a little more). but every single time Draco shows up on screen? I know he’s going to do something cool, act well, and the episode will be entertaining. And set up from episode 1 he’s a fascinating side character who knows Xena from the past, has a lot in common with her and who she used to be, and is one of the guys often in a bad guy role who feels like he has his own solid motivations and reasons for the path he’s taking in life (a lot like Xena and Marcus, and most of the more interesting side characters in the show). Basically ;-; I just wish he was in more episodes, I always miss him when he’s gone, and get way too delighted when I read a future ep summary and find out he’ll be back. 

3. Autolycus - played by Bruce Campell its hard not to find him at least fun and a little charming. While not actually hot to me at all during the show, while Xena was in his body she kissed Gabrielle and since Autolycus being a good friend helped make their first kiss a reality, he gets some favoritism in my book ToT. And very much like Draco, when he’s in an episode you know it’s probably going to be good. At least entertaining. I think the mustache is a plus tbh. Just gotta admire the Energy

4. Joxer - why yes, this is a biased list! While I am aware to my dumb attractions Aries is arguably hotter to me despite just feeling fury most of the time he’s on screen (so thanks writers for making me hate him as much as Xena does - its a good job, and I do love to hate him ToT what I love in a villain). But I loved Ted Raimi’s performance, I love the third part of the main character trio is not a beefcake or super muscley, I like that he looks like a person I can relate to. I love his arc, how much he grows alongside Xena and Gabrielle, like my dude starts out trying to fit into a warlord family and failing, learning to become a hero in his own right, and even more just developing a friendship and found family with Xena and Gabrielle. And best friends are hot! (Also comedically he works great with the main cast, like pretty much everyone on my hot rankings list lol, the show would not be the same without Joxer, also the performance of Ted Raimi as Xena’s reincarnation was a fun episode! And yes, like Autolycus - being Xena temporarily does ramp up hotness ToT)

5. Aries - because while he’s a villain and WOW do I HATE that DUDE - I also absolutely love him AS a villain. I LOVE when he shows up, even though I know I’m going to hate it and be stressed and be as tense as Xena until he’s gone. I love that he’s a villain that gives interest and momentum when he’s involved, like many on this list he feels like his motives have meaning and he cares about what he’s doing. Also... he is very pretty, and the joy that is him and Gabrielle - love rivals for Xena’s affections, the ex and the current babe - just having to be civil and chat it out, is hilarious and appreciated. Also, again, he’s very pretty ok I’m shallow

ANDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

6. Bonus! CALLISTO

SHES A FUCKING NIGHTMARE! HOT AS HELL! XENA’S FOIL AND WOW IS IT A JOY TO WATCH! SHE’S THE CONSEQUENCES OF XENA’S SINS, AND WHAT XENA MIGHT WELL HAVE ONCE BEEN AND SWITCHED OFF THE PATH OF BEFORE SPIRALING ALL THE WAY INTO WHAT CALLISTO’S BECOME. (Incidentally like multiple others on this list, she once body switched with Xena ToT). Her actress is magnetic, her whole aesthetic is my goal aesthetic, if i had to fall in love with a villain (and yes i SHOULD run but i really love Callisto!) Technically she doesn’t fit on this list since it was originally supposed to be about the guys (because if I made a list on Xena girls it would be a huge beast of it’s own), but I wanted an honorable shoutout for the original villainess I lovingly adored (with Lana Parrilla to blame for one of my favorites since lol).

And I realized as I finished up this list just how much what scores her as one of my Favorite Xena Characters also happens to help me find anyone else on the show hot - were they written well, did they make their episodes more fascinating, were their motives and actions sensible considering who they were, were they compelling villains/side characters/people in their own right, and did they have solid reasons and connections to the main character’s own arcs and lives when they interacted? Everyone on this list gets a big YES on these points. 

[hazelnutblogs]

I Chased a Dream - My Journey to becoming a Scholar in South Korea

Hello Everyone!

I just want to share my journey as a 2020 GKS Scholar.

It all started with a dream to pursue graduate studies related to my passion. I told my 27-year-old self: I want to be more in order to do more and help more. If I become capable, I can serve the people and most importantly, God. My passion is about protecting and sustaining our environment. While having that passion, I doubted myself and thought that I was old for this and maybe I can't do it. I asked myself, "Can I do it?" , "Do I have the means to push through it?" but, a quote struck me -  If not now, when? whoa! that was really moving, convincing... I then became more eager to materialize the plan that the Lord planted so deep in my heart - that I should pursue this dream and become an Environmental Warrior He wanted me to be.

1. The Treasure Hunt $$$

Since I have decided to pursue graduate studies related to the environment but realized that I do not have the means (meaning money 😂) to do so, I searched all day and night on Google for Fully Funded Scholarships... After several decades of searching, I finally found two (2) generous scholarships: MEXT (Monbukagusho) Scholarship and GKS (Global Korea Scholarship). I called it the treasure hunt since these are FULLY-FUNDED SCHOLARSHIPS. 🤑

2. The Preparation

Found it! What's next? Oh, taxing preparation.

I finally decided to choose GKS over MEXT because GKS is the same year application-same year take-off scholarship while MEXT will have you wait for a year before you can finally go and study in Japan (long-waiting period).

You know, you need to put in a lot of effort. This shows how badly you want this scholarship to change your life for the better. How bad do you want this? Oh, I wanted it as much as I wanted to breathe.

Effort, yes, that is right. But oh no?! it is already three (3) weeks before the deadline and you have work. Can I still do it? to cut the story short, I sacrificed a lot, especially sleep. I juggle work, my sideline, and this application preparation. #ExtraExtraEffort needed.

3. The Three (3) Phases of Waiting

Phase 1. Am I waiting in vain? I sent the documents to the University but I got no response for several days yet. If I didn't receive notice that they received it, I may be disqualified because the deadline is very near. Hey courier, please deliver soonest.

After 3 days, my documents finally arrived to South Korea! I emailed them and they verified that my docs arrived safely and now for evaluation.

The university will conduct document evaluation first and you will receive an email invitation for interview if you have passed the initial screening. . .

On the day of the scheduled selection, me: 😑😒😓😔😢😭😭😭. NO EMAIL YET~ "the date is today I'm sure, they'll announce!"

Me again: *keeps checking the time... Korean Time vs Philippine Time* Started to lose hope, discouraged... *ting* notification. . . . .  GMAIL. Tadah! "Meanwhile, we are planning to conduct a Skype video interview for selecting GKS 2020 scholar. Please tell me your Skype ID, contact phone number, and available time."

Oh My Gosh! The time (PST) I received the email was 6:36pm while the time of Gmail that they sent was 4:30pm (KST). Delayed. hahaha. Only the selected applicants will receive email and move on to the next selection phase - INTERVIEW!

Phase 2. Interview. Oh, this will be via Skype and it was my first time installing it. haha. Then, I decided to take the interview at 11:00AM (KST) which means 9:00AM (PST) hahaha. To tell you, I have work on that day! I just asked permission if I could go outside for a few minutes.

*Ring...* *Ring...* Skype mode on. (I guess I was the very first interviewee on the list since I've chosen the first time slot haha) *nervous!!!*

"Annyeong Haseyo, Jeonun Hazelieyo! blah...blah..." and then the internet connection became weak that the call stopped. OMG. I was lost in the momentum. They tried calling me back. I thought they wouldn't call me back! I cried in the hotel room after the interview because I was not satisfied with my performance. As in, I probably looked like a crazy woman crying in the hallway where there is CCTV on every corner. But still, thank God I survived.

Phase 3. Announcement of 2nd Round Results (Passers). I never ever expect to be listed. I felt very down. I didn't talk with my colleagues after that interview up to the day of the announcement. . .

The 2nd Round Results was scheduled to be announced on May 8,2020 but was postponed. The results came out on May 28, 2020!!! Imagine the feeling of intense waiting - cannot sleep, cannot focus. Every day you're still thinking if you get selected or not - please announce immediately so that I can move on!

But God makes way. He surprised me, again! It is not by my own strength that made it happen, but it is God's. He definitely gave me this dream I've been hoping for! - Saw my name on the list, #35 out of 35! hahaha😂😂😂. Another reason for me to panic or worry. Why?! because I do not know why my name was placed at the bottom part (it was not listed alphabetically). Since I passed the 2nd round but my name was at the bottom, I decided not to take my hopes high. Do not expect much so that you won't get hurt. lol.

The school recommended 35 of us at that university. These will further be screened by the National Institute for International Education (NIIED). So, my fate lies in NIIED.

4. FINAL ROUND SELECTION OF 2020 GKS SCHOLARS

The announcement which was scheduled on June 26, 2020, was postponed. Hahaha. We had a mini-heart attack. All of us who applied have this agony extended. Imagine, the 2nd Round Results and the Final Round Results were always postponed. Can you sleep peacefully? 😂

June 29, 2020 - GKS Final Round Successful Candidates were posted. I thought it would be postponed again because the results came out at 6:06 PM (PST).

Again, I was at work at that time. I was very busy with rapid testing activities. I said to myself I will check the results later, but no, all the scholars around the world are sending screenshots and pdf of the result. I was tempted to look immediately so I just glanced.

At first glance, my name was not there. I felt down. I felt sad. I said to myself "better luck next time, I will still continue to apply...". Then I tried to calm myself so that I can still focus on my work. I looked again the pdf file carefully, one-by-one, to see who got in and congratulate them. . . and then, TA-DA!!!

GKS-G-2020-728   PHILIPPINES   . . . I saw my name!

Waaah! I jumped out of joy! That was the happiest day of my life, that despite the adversity, uncertainty, hardships, I nailed it! I claimed victory in Jesus' name. Amen.

After almost a month, I finally received the Official Invitation from NIIED:

To those who want to change their life for the better, here's my advice:

Dream, Believe and Act on it! Fortune favors the brave!